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THE BUTTERFLY STORY:
LOVE, STRUGGLE, AND THE QUOTE YOU'LL CARRY FOREVER

The following quote is always with me.

It's on a card in my wallet. One of my students, who graduated from the DeSisto School in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and had her life changed from the experience, gave me the card. It was passed out at Michael DeSisto's funeral.

MICHAEL DESISTO: May 29, 1939 - November 1, 2003

“The butterfly is the most “human” of all insects, for the pain of its metamorphosis most closely resembles the pain experienced in human growth.

If we know that the beautiful butterfly inside the cocoon is fighting to get out and we love it and help it by doing for it – WE KILL IT!

The struggle that it undergoes is what goes it the strength to live. Children also, if we really love them, must be allowed to struggle, for only through the struggle of adolescence can they acquire the security of adulthood.

Love is not “doing for,” but “sharing with.”

* * * * *

Now, as my hero Paul Harvey says, here's “the rest of the story”...
From the book Simple Steps by Arthur Caliandro ...

THE STRUGGLE

I have a few stories that have helped me in my own life. They seem to me to embody truths that I believe are very important.

One of my favorites concerns a laboratory experiment by botanist Alfred Russell Wallace, a contemporary of Charles Darwin.

Interestingly, he developed the theory of evolution at about the same time that Darwin did.

Wallace was ready to publish it when he learned that Darwin had started the experimentation about six months before he had.

Wallace, a gentleman, deferred to Darwin , and it is Darwin who posterity credits with the theory of evolution.

In the experiment, Wallace was in his laboratory observing an Emperor butterfly trying to get free from its cocoon.

The struggle was intense with life-or-death consequences.

He wondered, “What would happen if I assisted this process?”

So with a knife he made a slit down the length of the cocoon.

This is what happened, in his words: “The butterfly emerged, spread its wings, drooped perceptibly, and died.”

The pain and intensity of the struggle had been denied it, and it had failed to grow. It could not emerge into the world with the strength it needed to survive.

Of course, we don't always welcome adversity with open arms.

We don't always welcome pain or setbacks.

Yet with the right kind of thinking, we can keep them in perspective and see them as opportunities to grow, strengthen, and excel in our lives.

With the right outlook and attitude, we can triumph over adversity.

-- from: Dr. Rob Gilbert with Joe DePalma

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