When the task is great, individuals think they are insignificant for the task. They do not seem to be a match for the task. When the thought makes a mark in their heart, they simply quit. They stop even trying. For them the following little story may be a real eye opener.
THE WEIGHT OF A SNOWFLAKE
“Tell me the weight of a snowflake,” a coal-mouse asked a wild dove.
“Nothing more than nothing,” was the answer.
“In that case I must tell you a marvelous story,” the coal mouse said.
“I sat on a branch of a fir tree, close to its trunk, when i began to snow, not heavily, not in a giant blizzard, no, just like in a dream, without any violence. Since I didn’t have anything better to do, I counted the snowflakes settling on the twigs and needles of my branch. Their number was exactly 3,741,952. When the next snowflake dropped onto the branch – nothing more than nothing, as you say – the branch broke off.”
Having said that, the coal-mouse flew away. The dove, since Noah’s time an authority on change, thought about the story for a while and finally said to herself: “Perhaps there is only one person’s voice lacking for peace to come about in the world”
- excerpted from "The At of Forgiveness, Loving kindness, and Peace" by Jack Kornfield
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