The Stone and the Sculptor

Once upon a time, a powerful king ruled a kingdom. One day, a foreign visitor came to his court and presented him with a beautiful stone as a gift.

The king was delighted to see the stone. He decided to carve a statue of Lord Vishnu from it and install it in the state temple. He entrusted the task of creating the statue to the state's chief minister.

The chief minister went to the village's best sculptor and, giving him the stone, said, "The king wants to install a statue of Lord Vishnu in the temple. Make a statue of Lord Vishnu from this stone and deliver it to the palace within seven days. You will be rewarded with 50 gold coins."

The sculptor was delighted to hear about the 50 gold coins. After the chief minister left, he took out his tools to begin the work of creating the statue.  He took a hammer from his tools and began hitting the stone with it, trying to break it. But the stone remained intact. The sculptor struck the stone several times with the hammer, but it didn't break.

After trying fifty times, the sculptor picked up the hammer for one last attempt, but he pulled it back before striking it, thinking, "If the stone didn't break after fifty blows, what would break it now?"

He took the stone back to the Chief Minister and returned it, saying that it was impossible to break it, and therefore, it couldn't be used to make a statue of Lord Vishnu.

The Chief Minister had to fulfill the king's order under all circumstances. Therefore, he entrusted the task of creating a statue of Lord Vishnu to a simple village sculptor. Taking the stone, the sculptor struck it with the hammer in front of the Chief Minister, and the stone broke in one stroke.

After the stone broke, the sculptor set about making the statue.  Meanwhile, the General Secretary began to think, "If only the sculptor had made one last attempt, he would have succeeded and earned the 50 gold coins."

We too face such situations in our lives. Sometimes, before we can begin a task or even solve a problem, our confidence wavers, and we give up without even trying. Sometimes, after failing in just one or two attempts, we give up.

While it's possible that with a few more attempts, the task could have been completed or the problem resolved. If you want to achieve success in life, you must not stop trying, even after repeated failures, until you succeed. Who knows, the attempt we give up before attempting may be our last, and we may succeed in it.

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