A metaphor is a necessary fact of perception that lets us experience and express ourselves and the world more vastly.
Read each of these metaphors daily and give yourself an extra perspective every day.
1. The weight of the glass
Imagine someone is raising a glass of water over their head and you have to tell how heavy the glass is. The answer should be from that person’s perspective, the weight of the glass should be irrelevant. It depends on how long that person can hold it. Every minute it’s being held, there is a different reaction to it. Your worries, frustrations or disappointments are like this glass of water. The more you think about it, the more impact it can have in your life.
2. Like elephants
Ancient elephant trainers chain fully frown elephants with a chain and tie the chain to a wooden peg hammered to the ground. The most powerful ground animal such as an elephant can easily break the chain and the peg remains tied without even trying. This is because these trainers train them since babies. When they were small, they try to break this chain but the chain remains strong for it to hold the baby elephants. So gradually they will stop trying. Now that they have outgrown it, they still remember the fact they can never escape not knowing their capacity. Likewise, we people are also restrained from certain things not knowing our capabilities may be due to a miserable experience in our past. Learn from your past and leave behind the fears.
3. See the flowers
There was an old woman who fetches two buckets by the river for drinking, cooking and cleaning. One of the buckets was new and perfect. The other one is cracked and leaking water which leaves about three-quarters of the water when she comes home.
One day, the cracked bucket said to this woman that it is sorry for giving her trouble and making her life difficult. It would understand if she wants to replace it with a new one. She replied that she is totally aware that it is leaking but it is not aware that it waters the flowers to grow on her back the seeds she had planted.
Remember to feel good about life, work and relationships have everything to do with how we judge our own cracks.
4. The tangerines
You have a ripe tangerine and you are eager to have it. You know how it tastes but when this is a bit tarter, you make a face of disappointment and feel cheated. Or tangerines might taste normal and you just swallow them without tasting them at all.
It’s either good or bad. This is how we live totally unhappily. No matter how perfect you expect things to be, there will always be positive and negative outcomes. Disappointment will always follow you.
5. Only water around you
We desperately try to hold on to most of the things, as if it is real, solid and long-lasting in our lives but not there.
Imagine you’re blindfolded and treading water in the centre of a large swimming pool, and you’re struggling desperately to grab the edge of the pool that you think is near, but it’s far away. Trying to grab that imaginary edge is causing you stress and tiring you, as you splash around aimlessly trying to hold on to something that isn’t there.
Now imagine you pause, take a deep breath, and realize that there’s nothing nearby to hold except the water. You can continue to struggle with grabbing at something that doesn’t exist or you can accept that there’s only water around you, relax, and float.
6. A game of chess
Almost no one wins a game of chess by only moving forward.
You have to move backwards to win yourself.
Because when it feels like you’re running into one dead end after another, it’s a sign that you’re not on the correct path. Life gradually teaches us that U-turns are allowed. There’s a big difference between giving up and getting yourself going in the right direction again.
7. The mind is a muscle
Just like every muscle in the body, the mind needs to be practised to increase strength. It needs to be worked invariably to grow and develop over time. If you haven’t pushed yourself in hundreds of little ways over time, of course, you’ll crumble on the one day that things get slightly challenging. You can choose to do whatever when you want to.
