When the Time has Gone
One day in the desert, there was a young man who was walking alone. The young man had been walking for days. The young man walked without a clear purpose, until one day, the bottle of drink he was carrying began to run out. When he felt thirsty and tried to open the bottle, it turned out that the water was only one more gulp. He also thought about how he could get water for his supplies on the way. He realized that he still had a long way to go. The young man kept walking, hoping to find a place with plenty of water so he could fill his bottle.
After almost hours of walking, the young man began to feel tired because of the heat in the desert. He also realized that it was not easy to find water in the desert. The young man began to feel hopeless and almost gave up. After thinking about giving up, suddenly, he saw a tree that was quite shady. The young man was trying to get to the tree quickly. After getting close enough to the tree, the man saw an old woman sitting alone under the tree.
When he got there, the young man asked the old woman, “what are you doing here?”. The old woman did not answer the young man’s question. After several attempts to get the old woman to communicate but she did not get any response from the old woman. Finally the man decided not to continue his efforts to invite the old woman to communicate. He decided to sit and rest for a while under the tree before he resumed his journey.
Feeling that he had had enough rest, the young man began to continue his journey to get water. After taking a few steps, suddenly the old woman spoke and said something to the young man, “keep walking forward. Your path is correct. You will find a small lake with very clear water. When you are in the lake, you can do whatever you like. You can drink as much as you want and swim as much as you want. You can also take as much as you can take there because once you leave the lake you will never be able to return to the lake again”. The young man was just him without replying to the old woman’s words and he finally left the old woman. On the way, the young man kept remembering what the old woman said and thought maybe the old woman was just making it up, how I could find a lake in the desert like this.
Less than an hour from where the old woman, suddenly the man saw water from a distance. He felt very happy and ran quickly to the place of the water. When he got there, he immediately jumped into the lake, swam, and drank water as much as he could. He spends his time there to have fun. After it was enough, the young man wanted to leave the place. Before leaving the place, the young man remembered the words of the old woman he met earlier, “take as much as you can there, because once you leave that place, you can’t come back again”. The young man filled the bottle he was carrying with water while looking at what else he could bring before leaving the place. In the young man thought, ” what can I take here?, here are only twigs and rocks”. Finally, the young man decided to take a little stone and put it in his pocket, and he left the lake.
Night came, the young man decided to rest and sleep. When he was sleeping, he suddenly woke up because the stone he was carrying disturbed his sleep. Immediately, he felt angry and took the stone from his pocket and threw it away. Not long after, suddenly the stone turned into a diamond after being exposed to light from the moon. He was very happy to see the diamonds and rushed back to the lake earlier. After hours of searching, the young man couldn’t find it either. Then he remembered the words of the old woman he met. The young man also regreted why he did not believe the words of the old woman he met.
From this story, the lesson we can take is use the time we have as well as possible. If you are a student, use your time to study as well as posible. If you are a worker, use your time to work as well as possible, because what you do today, determines the results you will get in the future.
by : Iwan Suheriono, S.S