Do not judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree

The fish loved the river. It felt blissful swimming around in its clear blue waters. One day while swimming closer to the river banks it hears a voice: “Hey, fish, how is the water?”. The fish raises its head above the water to see who it was. It sees a monkey seated on a branch of a tree extended over the water.

The fish replies, “The water is nice and warm, thank you”. The monkey feels jealous of the fish and wants to put it down. It says, “Why don’t you come out of the water and climb this tree. The view from here is amazing!”

The fish feeling a little sad, replies, “I don’t know how to climb a tree and I cannot survive without water”. Hearing this the monkey makes fun of the fish saying, “You are totally worthless if you cannot climb a tree!”

The fish starts thinking about this remark day and night and becomes extremely depressed, “Yes, the monkey is right”, it would think, “I cannot even climb a tree, I must be worthless.”

A sea-horse sees the fish feeling all depressed and asks it what the reason was. Upon knowing the reason, the sea-horse laughs and says, “If the monkey thinks you are worthless for not being able to climb the tree, then the monkey is worthless too because it cannot swim or live under water.”

Upon hearing this the fish suddenly realised how gifted it was; that it had the ability to survive under water and swim freely which the monkey never could!

A few days later, news comes to the fish that the monkey had slipped accidentally and fallen into the water and reached its demise as it could not swim. The fish feels thankful to nature for giving it such an amazing ability.

All of us want to be happy and successful, yet only some of us are able to achieve it. If you want to take control of your life and be successful, there are some golden rules to follow.  The first step in your journey of self-discovery is to have belief in yourself and not let others define who you are.