Change doesn’t happen in grand gestures.

You change by making ordinary that which you once thought was impossible.

And that is a slow ride. It is progress. The journey is not a 100 meters sprint. It is a marathon.

It takes time for change to materialize in your life.

There is a saying I like:

“Do not be disgusted by the caterpillar, the butterfly is yet to come.”

Change is painful. It is not comfortable. And this discomfort turns into disgust when you can no longer swim above the water.

I have seen people give up on their dreams. Because change is challenging their daily routines and a thousand screaming arrows are shot at them menacingly. Where do you think these people stepped toward? Forward where the road is slow but worth it? Well, no. They have the option to fall back on.

They stop changing for the better because it is a long journey. They stop stepping towards their dreams because they want change to show itself in their life in grand gestures.

It doesn’t happen that way.

You change when you no longer look for the easy way out. You change when you are willing to stay the long course. You change when you are willing to struggle. You change when you are willing to grow, even when you are already good.

You change when you fail under the best circumstances and you choose to pick yourself up. You change when your path seems so separate and distant and yet you still move forward because you are the only one who can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

You change when the failures on your route to success are crumbling you and you choose to take one day at a time. You change when you move forward even when you hurt. You change when you move forward even when you are in doubt.

Change does not happen overnight.

You have probably heard of the butterfly story. The author of the story is not known, but many authors have given their version of it with slight variations in the narrative.

A man spent hours watching a butterfly struggling to emerge from its cocoon. It managed to make a small hole, but its body was too huge to get through it. After a long struggle, it appeared to be tired, and remained absolutely still, seeming to give up.

The man thought he would help the butterfly, and with a pair of scissors, he cut open the cocoon, thus releasing the butterfly. However, the butterfly’s body was tiny and wrinkled, and its wings were all crinkly.

The man continued to watch, thinking that at any moment the butterfly would unfold its wings and fly away. Nothing happened; in fact, the butterfly spent the remainder of its brief life crawling around its shrunken body and crinkly wings, incapable of flying.

What the man out of kindness and his eagerness to help had failed to understand was that the close-fitting cocoon and the efforts the butterfly was forced to make to squeeze out of that small hole were Nature’s way of training the butterfly and of strengthening its wings.

Lessons you can learn from a butterfly:

· Unless you give a chance to your talents and skills, they will stay dormant or they will shiver inside. What you are capable of can only be possible if it is given a chance.

· Losing hope is the most destructive thing you do. Without hope, you cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. Let us not lose hope because we never know what tomorrow will bring.

· Life is like a butterfly. If you do the same thing again and again the result will be the same. For things to change we must do things differently. You go through changes before you become something beautiful.

·You must have a strong reason for leaving a place you no longer want to be in. You must hate your current circumstances enough so that you can put your foot in the new direction. You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.

· When you see someone’s success you see automatically the success that is right in front of you. You do not see the struggle behind. You do not see the long walk that has led to the present moment. The struggle is developing us.

“Behind every beautiful thing, there is some kind of pain.” Bob Dylan

·You must love the journey. You must love each stage you pass through. You don’t recognize it immediately but every step in your journey is making you stronger than ever before. Without the different steps, you would be the same.

· We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through.

“The wings of transformation are born out of patience and struggle.” Janet S. Dickens

· Let us not settle for anything. We can do so much more. Let us not stand in our way. Let us learn from nature.

If a caterpillar decided on being a caterpillar, we would not even have known a butterfly.

· When you think you are at the end of something, try to remember that point might be the beginning of another journey.

What you see right in front of you might deceive you into thinking that it is the end of the road but that point is also the beginning of a new road.

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.

To your inspirations,

Banchi