Who knows, the coconut may break with the next blow …

“Patience is not really my forte,” said a participant on one of the contests that we are running on this Web site after he missed being one of the prize winners by a whisker, only because he gave up the effort quickly without utilising the entire duration allowed for attempting the puzzle. The comment was evidently made in a lighter vein, and we took it in the spirit, too, but for our Webmaster, it triggered a train of thought and memories. He shares his thoughts here:

The comment made me think, and I realised that patience is really a priceless virtue, and perseverance does pay! Had it not been for patience, we would not have had the incandescent light bulb that we take so much for granted today, because Thomas Alva Edison, who invented it, failed scores of times before he struck gold. Imagine if Edison had given up saying “Patience is not a virtue I have,” where would the world be today?

We believe destiny cannot be changed, but my grandfather thought otherwise. He would often use his favourite analogy to drive home the point – of someone trying to break a coconut the way we commonly do, by striking it against a stone or similar hard substance. “You bang the coconut once, it does not break; you bang it again, still nothing; once more, still no good. However, don’t give up. It may need maybe four, maybe eight, maybe even ten blows. You never know when it is on the verge of breaking with another blow,” he would say, and then make the dramatic statement with the same relish every time: “Who knows, the coconut may break with the next blow!” What he meant was that with effort and perseverance, you can change even destiny itself!

The moral here is, no matter how tough the task appears, no matter how many times you fail, do not get dejected; get up, dust off your clothes and try again. Who knows, the next blow may break open the door to the treasure!