One Gets Accustomed to Everything
A woman from the fragrant countryside married a man who lived near a tannery. This tannery, where leather is prepared, smelled very bad and fouled the air. The woman smelled this very bad smell everywhere and wanted to leave. But the neighbors told her to see a wise old man nearby and ask him for advice. He said to the woman, “You have come today and the tanners have started working. In a few days they will reduce their work and after fifteen or twenty days they will be finished. Then there will be no bad smell.”
The woman was satisfied that an old man, a very responsible man, had spoken to her. After about a month, he asked her, “Now they have taken away the leather. Do you smell the bad smell?” She said, ”No, I don’t smell it. You were right and now it is fine.” Then the old man said: “Your nose has become accustomed to the smell [The leather processing] is still continuously going on, but it has become so much a part of you that it no longer smells unnatural. Things develop in such a way.”
This is also the same for us. After some time we are not so sensitive to the pains and miseries around us. So in this way, being continuously under negative and awful situations, we have now become a part of them. Worldly life is like this and it will go on like this. But when we come in contact with our real Self, our soul Self, we begin to enjoy all the enjoyments of the highest, most beautiful, and most glorious kind.
Moral: Humans are creatures of habit. The best is to love the Word better than the world.
Sant Thakar Singh
from Good Stories Make Us Good