Snow Melt

Caterpillars, Chrysalises and Butterflies

Lead entry for "Follow the Leader"   [13+] by mood indigo

I read a story once about a man who saw a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. He watched the Lepidoptera struggle to escape. The creature was having a great deal of difficulty emerging. He felt sorry for the butterfly so he decided to help it escape. He gently helped the creature out of the chrysalis and watch as it moved across the ground and the plants. However, the butterfly's wings were never able to lift it off the ground. It spent the rest of its life crawling in the same garden it emerged. Only after he helped the creature emerge from it chrysalis did he realize that the struggle to escape helped the butterfly in its next stage of life.

This story came to mind the other day, when I watched a child learn to walk. She wanted to hold onto everything, but if she continued to hold on, she would never learn how to walk for herself. Her mother could only help to a small extent by letting her know she was there backing her daughter up without giving so much help that the child never learned to walk on her own.

I think what I am trying to say is that we need to help people who are in trouble. However, we have to be careful that we do not enable them to become dependent upon us and not stand on their own or learn to solve their own problems. Where do we draw the line, do we give a person a fish or do we roll our sleeves up and teach them to fish.

I think sometimes we want so much to help that we do not look at the type of a help a person needs or wants. We need to start asking, what do you need and what type of help do you want. An individual needs to ask him/herself the same questions. The individual needs to ask what do I need to get through the day, the week, or the month; what type of help do I want. If an individual does not know the answers to those questions, then he/she may up getting the wrong type of help and allowing him/herself to be enabled. The struggle makes the individual strong and enables a person to fly beyond the walls of self and fear.