Sacrifice

There is nothing free in this world; we have to work for everything we want. We have to make sacrifices for everything such as effort, time etc. There may be some ads which say; buy one, get one free. Even so, we have to spend money, don’t we? There is an expression “The bigger sacrifices we make, the bigger reward will be received”. But it doesn’t mean we do things only for reward; reward means result.

We can see how we have made sacrifices in our life since we were young; we had to go to school to learn how to live a life. When we grew up, we had to sacrifice our life to work, making a living. The more we sacrifice the more reward we gain. To support this explanation, there is the Chinese folktale which can illustrate how people sacrifice well. Here is the story:

Once upon a time, on earth there was no sun so everywhere was covered by the darkness. The earth was gloomy, there was neither beauty nor light. The darkness hid demons, evil, badness etc. People and living beings were in trouble everywhere; bad people harmed good people and big animals attacked small animals. Then the most senior man in the village assembled a meeting to try to solve this big problem. One man said, “We must go and ask the sun to give light to our world”. People agreed and asked, “Who is going to do this great task? Because the journey will be very difficult and dangerous, especially as it will take 70 years”. A 10 year old boy raised his hand and volunteered, saying, “Sir, I will do that job”. People said, “No, this hard job we cannot give to a child”.

While they were discussing it, a pregnant lady said, “Sir, please let me take on this great task. If I cannot do it, my baby will complete this job”. People saw that and agreed, “Yes, it is reasonable. If she cannot do it, her baby will continue to do this job. This is a chance, that we will have the sun shine on our world”. After the agreement, the pregnant lady prepared herself for a long journey. All the people saw her off at the end of the village and wished her success in the great task.

Then she made the journey and got help from people a long the way throughout her journey. When almost nine months had passed, she gave birth to a son and took good care of him. She continued the journey for another twenty years and then she died. The son continued his mother’s task for fifty years. Finally, he was able to complete the job, he met the sun and asked him to shine on the world. The sun accepted the demand and agreed that he would shine his light on the world for 12 hours a day. “That is very kind of you, thank you very much indeed”, the boy said and started his journey back home.

Some people, who lived in the village waiting for the sunshine, had died, but the matter was told to the next generation, with hope. And one day the sun rose in the morning, people were very happy and knew that the lady and her son had been able to finish the great task. They celebrated the big success everywhere. When the light came on earth, it chased away the darkness. The evil or demon had to hide itself and fierce animals went away into the deep jungle. They could come out only after sunset. This was good enough because people were not worried for the whole day.

Since then people worked, farming, cutting wood, and fishing etc. by day and stayed at home after sunset. They thanked the lady and her son for their task, helping the world to have light. So every year, there was a big celebration for those who did such a great job for the world.

This story shows that a great task needs a big sacrifice and also needs unity and harmony. These virtues always produce the greatest result, as the ancient people, the lady and her son, did. This teaches us that if a big sacrifice is made, a great reward is received. That sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?