Category: Stories

“I’m confused with your teaching,” said the achiever to the master. “You teach us that life is already complete and that we have to be satisfied with who we are.”

“True,” said the master.

“But if that is so, what do I do with all my goals and dreams? Do I just give them up and throw them away? Why even bother getting out of the bed in the morning if I have nothing to strive for?” said the achiever.

“Ah, that is where you are mistaken,” said the master. “You have it in your head that your goals and dreams are a means to an end — that they will somehow make you happier or more satisfied. But no matter how much you achieve, you still feel something missing inside, right?”

“Yes,” said the achiever.

“That’s because you are searching for something that isn’t there. You are grasping for something that is already in you. You are like the fish in the ocean looking for water. The moment you realize that, there will be peace, contentment, satisfaction, enlightenment,” said the master.

“So back to my question, once I’m content and happy, of what use are goals?” said the achiever.

“Do not pursue goals to in order to be happy or complete. Realize that you already are happy and complete. Rather, pursue goals as a celebration of your happiness and completeness,” said the master.

Henri Nouwen was well-respected priest, professor, lecturer and author. He wrote over 40 books and taught at Notre Dame, Yale and Harvard. At the seeming peak of his life and popularity, Nouwen suddenly turned his back on these and joined the L’Arche Daybreak community in Canada whose mission it was to care for disabled people.

From being a busy academic whose life was spent studying, teaching, and meeting people, he now had the daily and solitary task of caring for Adam, a young man who could not walk nor talk. Day in and day out, Nouwen would give Adam his bath, feed him, change him, and take care of his every need.

One day a reporter came to him and interviewed him regarding his change of lifestyle. The reporter asked why he chose to make this person the beneficiary of his actions and intellect, instead of the rest of the world.

Nouwen appeared surprised at the question, then said, “You are mistaken. Adam is not the beneficiary of this relationship. If anything, I am the one who is gaining more from this relationship than he is. Not him. Me.”

A shepherd kept his sheep in a pen enclosed by a low wall.

One day, a little lamb found a hole in the wall and crawled out through it. It wandered around the hills and the meadows but a wolf spotted it and started to chase it around. The lamb ran for its life but the wolf was fast and hungry and was gaining on the lamb.

Suddenly there was a loud crack as the shepherd’s club hit the wolf squarely on its skull. The shepherd picked up the lamb and carried it back home, whispering to it gently along the way. He put the lamb back in the pen.

His neighbors heard about the incident and urged him to patch up the hole in the wall.

But despite their urgings, the shepherd decided to keep the hole right where it was.

At church, Tom glanced around and noticed several other churchgoers who were dozing off during the preacher’s sermon.

He whispered to his seatmate (who happened to be God in disguise), “Look at all these people sleeping. They shouldn’t be disrespecting the Lord like that.”

And in that moment, God revealed himself to Tom and whispered in his mind, “I would rather, my son, that you were sleeping like them instead of feeling indignant and self-righteous.”