Three of the best stories: TURTLES, FROGS and THE PRETTY LADY

My friend forwarded me this 3 Great lessons of life. Although I had read 2 of the stories before, I pondered over and over after re-reading them.  I like to share them here and hope to benefit my visitors.
因为值得,所以,我把故事心得整理如下:
1.信任：生活中，我们常常看到有些人，请了佣人或保母，确对他充满不信任，于是，整日盯着他的工作，看他有没有偷窃、有没有虐待家中的老小。试想，如果有空去盯住他人，干脆将那些家務自己做就好了，何必浪费金錢與雙重的人力？
一些政府机关或私人公司里的层级，有些不也是如此吗？
2.小题大作：以前，我和小孩子一样害怕黑暗，晚上一个人睡的时候，会乱想、害怕，早上看到太陽，就没事了．後来我告诉自己多想想白天的光明，晚上就没那么害怕了。但是，我遇到心烦的事时，还是很容易陷入忧郁的深渊，确实如同百万蛙鸣，无法入眠。我得好好学习此篇的“勿小题大作”，以及下篇的“放下”。
3.放下： 当我门一直沉陷在过去的烦恼与不愉快时，我们只会譲自己更痛苦，而那些讓你痛苦的人，可能还不知道你的情况呢！或许是别人的错，或许不是，多想無益，没有必要執著過去，傷害自己。
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The Turtles －－信任
A turtle family decided to go on a picnic. The turtles, being naturally slow about things, took seven years to prepare for their outing. Finally the turtle family left home looking for a suitable place. During the second year of their journey they found a place ideal for them at last!
For about six months they cleaned the area, unpacked the picnic basket, and completed the arrangements. Then they discovered they had forgotten the salt. A picnic without salt would be a disaster, they all agreed. After a lengthy discussion, the youngest turtle was chosen to retrieve the salt from home. Although he was the fastest of the slow moving turtles, the little turtle whined, cried, and wobbled in his shell. He agreed to go on one condition: that no one would eat until he returned. The family consented and the little turtle left.
Three years passed and the little turtle had not returned. Five years...six years... then on the seventh year of his absence, the oldest turtle could no longer contain his hunger. He announced that he was going to eat and begun to unwrap a sandwich. At that point the little turtle suddenly popped out from behind a tree shouting, 'See! I knew you wouldn't wait. Now I am not going to go get the salt.'
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[Some of us waste our time waiting for people to live up to our expectations. We are so concerned about what others are doing that we do not do anything ourselves.]


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The Frogs －小题大作
A farmer came into town and asked the owner of a restaurant if he could use a million frog legs. The restaurant owner was shocked and asked the man where he could get so many frog legs! The farmer replied, 'There is a pond near my house that is full of frogs - millions of them. They all croak all night long and they are about to make me crazy!' So the restaurant owner and the farmer made an agreement that the farmer would deliver frogs to the restaurant, five hundred at a time for the next several weeks.

The first week, the farmer returned to the restaurant looking rather sheepish, with two scrawny little frogs. The restaurant owner said, 'Well.... where are all the frogs?' The farmer said, 'I was mistaken. There were only these two frogs in the pond. But they sure were making a lot of noise!'
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[ Next time you hear somebody criticizing or making fun of you, remember, it's probably just a couple of noisy frogs.
Also remember that problems always seem bigger in the dark. Have you ever laid in your bed at night worrying about things which seem almost overwhelming like a million frogs croaking? Chances are pretty good that when the morning comes, and you take a closer look, you'll wonder what all the fuss was about.]



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The Pretty Lady －－放下

Once upon a time a big monk and a little monk were traveling together. They came to the bank of a river and found the bridge was damaged. They had to wade across the river. There was a pretty lady who was stuck at the damaged bridge and couldn't cross the river.
The big monk offered to carry her across the river on his back. The lady accepted. The little monk was shocked by the move of the big monk. 'How can big brother carry a lady when we are supposed to avoid all intimacy with females?' thought the little monk. But he kept quiet... The big monk carried the lady across the river and the small monk followed unhappily. When they crossed the river, the big monk let the lady down and they parted ways with her. All along the way for several miles, the little monk was very unhappy with the
act of the big monk. He was making up all kinds of accusations about big monk in his head. This got him madder and madder. But he still kept quiet.. And the big monk had no inclination to explain his situation.
Finally, at a rest point many hours later, the little monk could not stand it any further, he burst out angrily at the big monk. 'How can you claim yourself a devout monk, when you seize the first opportunity to touch a female, especially when she is very pretty? All your teachings to me make you a big hypocrite The big monk looked surprised and said, 'I had put down the pretty lady at the river bank many hours ago, how come you are still carrying her along?'

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[This very old Chinese Zen story reflects the thinking of many people today. We encounter many unpleasant things in our life, they irritate us and they make us angry. Sometimes, they cause us a lot of hurt, sometimes they cause us to be bitter or jealous .. But like the little monk, we are not willing to let them go away.We keep on carrying the baggage of the 'pretty lady' with us.
We let them keep on coming back to hurt us, make us angry, make us bitter and cause us a lot of agony.
Why? Simply because we are not willing to put down or let go of the baggage of the 'pretty lady'.

We should let go of the pretty lady immediately after crossing the river.
This will immediately remove all our agonies. There is no need to be further hurt by the unpleasant event after it is over.