Lessons from the Excerpt 1, 2, and 3 : “THE QUESTION”

Before you begin reading about “the question,” i recommend first reading excerpt 1, 2, and 3 because this is a summary of all the three posts. Now, ‘the question’: Two boys. Two frogs. Two powerful choices. Riches or poverty. Life or death.

We are making these same choices, every day, every hour, and the choices we make are spreading out through our life, just like the water hyacinth.This is where we all go wrong with the choices because You may not see the results today, or tomorrow, or even next year. They do not happen in an instant.
In fact, by the time you do finally see the results, the process will probably be so far away that the surface of the pond will be completely covered.
Now the question is, covered with what?

When the wealthy man spoke to his sons, the second boy thought he was offering them a choice of which money to take. But the first boy listened more carefully. He remembered that money was only the second gift. He understood that the choice was not whether to take the penny or the sheaf of bills… the choice was whether or not to take the third gift.

Wisdom.

The lesson was not about money: it was about wisdom. It was a lesson about compound interest, leverage, geometric progression and growth. It was a lesson about the Slight Edge.

The choice the wealthy man offered his two sons is the same choice the world offers, every day, every hour: sickness or health; sinking poverty or abundant wealth; deepening loneliness and alienation or a rich and growing circle of friends.

The Slight Edge is the guide to the wealthy man’s third gift; it will help in learning habits of thought and action that will allow you to choose the penny doubled, every time. It will keep you paddling until your cream becomes butter. It gives you the power to choose what to plant in your life, so that you will end up completely blanketing the surface of the pond with the blossoms of your choice.
Use the slight edge to your advantage.

In my next post, i will clearly discuss what the slight edge is.

 

Excerpt 3: “The Water Hyacinth”

The water hyacinth is a beautiful, delicate-looking little plant. Prized as an ornament, it sports six-petaled flowers ranging from a lovely purplish blue, to lavender, to pink. You can find it floating on the surface of ponds in warm climates around the world.

The water hyacinth is also one of the most productive plants on earth; its reproductive rate astonishes botanists and ecologists. Although a single plant can produce as many as 5,000 seeds, the method it prefers for colonizing a new area is to grow by doubling itself, sending out short runner stems that become “daughter plants.”

If a pond’s surface is fairly still and undisturbed, the water hyacinth may cover the entire pond in thirty days.

On the first day, you won’t even notice it. In fact, for the first few weeks you will have to search very hard to find it. On day 15, it will cover perhaps a single square foot of the pond’s surface . . . a barely significant dollop of color dotting the expanse of placid green.

On the twentieth day (two-thirds of the way to the end of the month), you may happen to notice a dense little patch of floating foliage, about the size of a small mattress. You would be easily forgiven if you mistook it for a boy’s inflatable life raft, left behind during a family picnic.

On day 29, one-half of the pond’s surface will be open water.

On the thirtieth day, the entire pond will be covered by a blanket of water hyacinth.

You will not see any water at all.

Water hyacinth covers river