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The Bird’s advice

A small bird was sitting on a babul tree branch when she suddenly felt herself being dragged to the ground. A hunter had caught the small bird in his net. The bird flapped her wings and tried to escape. But, there seemed to be no way out. The little bird was very scared and yet she decided to reason with the hunter.


The bird said to the hunter, “Release me, for I am too small. I will not satisfy the hunger of even a single family member for yours. You can always catch a bigger animal. In return of setting me free, I will give you three valuable pieces of advice. My advice will be much more valuable to you than my flesh.


The hunter was still unsure. The bird understood that and said reassuringly, “I will give you the first advice when I am still in your grip, the second when you let me go and I fly up to the top of your hut and the third when I fly up to the top of the tree. My advice will help you become very rich.”


The hunter reluctantly agreed to the terms. The bird have the first advice and said, “Do not believe anything that goes against common sense/ sounds impossible, unless you have firsthand proof.”


The hunter let her go and the bird quickly flew to the top of his hut. The bird than said, “Do not torment yourself with excessive regret for mistakes. When something is in the past, it is never coming back.”


The bird than flew up to the tree, sat on a branch and said, “You fool. I have two huge jewels inside of me, and if you had killed me instead of letting me go, you would have had them and would have become very rich.”


As the hunter heard these words, he became very sad and disappointed. He started thinking, How could I be so stupid? I am never going to get over this. He started sobbing and said, “ Bird, can you at least give the third piece of advice as a consolation?”


The bird replied, “I have been fooling you. And now you are asking for more advice, yet you have already disregarded the first two pieces of advice I gave you. I told you not to believe things that go again common sense. And than I told you not to torment yourself with excessive regret for mistakes. You have disregarded both pieces of advice and you are still asking for more advice."


When the hunter insisted, the bird agreed to share the third piece of advice. She said, ”To impart wisdom to fools is like trying to grow crops in a marshy land.”


She than flew off the tree towards the open sky.


The END


Learnings


1. The bird has given very practical advice which we can use in our daily lives. The first advice is very apt for financial investors. In stock market, investors are offered fantastic returns by some advisors. Lot of times, promises are made without the advisor having any idea if those promises can be fulfilled. Several retail investors get conned by such advisors and just loose their hard earned money. So it is very important that we do not believe in things which are too good to be true unless we have verified ourselves. In the story, the hunter was feeling bad about letting the bird with a diamond in her stomach go. Similarly, a lot of us feel bad for something which we imagine we could have got and just feel pity for ourselves when we have not got it. (Would be Bitcoin investors?)


2. Second advice talks about how we should not be worried about what has happened in the past. Crying over the spilt milk is not a wise thing to do. In the business word, we realize that there is no point in agonizing about past losses. We should be forward looking and stop crying about things we did not do in the past...


3. The third advice is about whom to give what kind of advice. This is very important because if people do not understand what advice you are giving them, they might only harm themselves or turn against you and might even harm you. So it is better to give the advice based on the person you are working with. Bible says that we should not throw the pearls to the swine…



STORY CREDIT: This story has its source in the six volumes of Masnavi by Jalalu'din Rumi, translated by Maryam Mafi

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