THE SAD PAWPAW TREE

A Short Moral Story.

A farmer had a huge pawpaw plantation from which he made a lot of money. He often sold the fruits to processing factories to be made into pawpaw juices. The trees were strong, healthy and produced extremely juicy and flavourful fruits. All the trees were overjoyed that they were of great service to their owner, the farmer.

However, there was one particular tree among them that was sad and depressed. She had lived for some years and bore many mature fruits, but her fruits never ripened, and were scarcely worth harvesting. It hurt her so much. Unlike other trees which fruits developed into yellow, soft and delicious pawpaws, her own fruits remained green, strong and unripe.

Each time the factory workers came to pick the ripe fruits, the sad tree would beg and plead.

"Please pick my fruits. I beg of you! No matter how few you pick, I would be satisfied. If you don't pick my fruits, my master would be left with no other option but to cut me down. Please choose my fruits!" she would cry bitterly.

But the factory workers never took her pleas into consideration, and would reply harshly.

"Your fruits are worthless and are of no use to us. Don't you know we use them to make delicious juices? Yours are not ripe and sweet, and therefore can't be processed into juices. We can't pick yours!"

Everyday, the sad tree grew more and more depressed. But at some point, she decided to accept her fate and stop begging for her fruits to be picked.

One day, an old lady came to the plantation to pick fruits she would buy. But surprisingly, she instructed her workers to pluck all the fruits from the sad pawpaw tree as they were her preferred choice. The sad tree was utterly astounded and very excited as she watched all her fruits being plucked off her. She could not believe it. Then she said to the old lady.

"But my fruits aren't ripe and sweet like the others. Why did you choose them?" 

The old lady smiled and said.

"Well, I don't make juice, so I don't need them to be ripe and sweet. I'm a medical herbalist who uses plants to treat diseases and enhance general health and well-being. There are no doubts that an unripe green pawpaw is loaded with a lot of health benefits. It prevents heart problem, helps treat infections, helps digestion, lowers risk of cancer, helps in the treatment of ulcer, just to mention a few... Your fruits are wonderful, and are the best for me"

We often times force ourselves on people who don't value us. We force ourselves to have space in people's lives that don't recognize our worth. We force to be loved and to be accepted, we force conversations, friendship and interactions... We must learn to stop forcing things as it is never the right thing to do. We were not built to force ourselves on people. If another person doesn't feel like being part of your life, you should let them go. You are precious, you are unique, you are special and full of potentials, and the right people will know your worth. They will love and value you for who you are without having to beg them to choose you.

Author: Chima_Dickson Official 

I let my stories teach the life lessons.