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Best Motivational Short Stories You Need To Read This 2020

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2020 is quite a roller coaster ride that seems to be hanging mid-air with no plans on landing back on the ground. In short, it has been a terribly surprising year. Despite the bleakness of it all though, we humans will find some reprieve when the going gets tough. In order to lift up your spirits and face a new day ahead, here are motivational short stories written in discourse that might resonate with you.

Best Motivational Short Stories You Need To Read This 2020

potato heart

 Potatoes, Eggs, and Coffee Beans 

Once upon a time, a daughter complained to her father that her life was miserable and that she didn’t know how she was going to make it. She was tired of fighting and struggling all the time. It seemed just as one problem was solved, another one soon followed.

Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Once the three pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in one pot, eggs in the second pot, and ground coffee beans in the third pot.

He then let them sit and boil, without saying a word to his daughter. The daughter moaned and impatiently waited, wondering what he was doing.

After twenty minutes he turned off the burners. He took the potatoes out of the pot and placed them in a bowl. He pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl.

He then ladled the coffee out and placed it in a cup. Turning to her he asked. “Daughter, what do you see?”

“Potatoes, eggs, and coffee,” she hastily replied.

“Look closer,” he said, “and touch the potatoes.” She did and noted that they were soft. He then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. Its rich aroma brought a smile to her face.

“Father, what does this mean?” she asked.

He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and coffee beans had each faced the same adversity– the boiling water.

However, each one reacted differently.

The potato went in strong, hard, and unrelenting, but in boiling water, it became soft and weak.

The egg was fragile, with the thin outer shell protecting its liquid interior until it was put in the boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard.

However, the ground coffee beans were unique. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed the water and created something new.

“Which are you,” he asked his daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean?”

Moral: In life, things happen around us, things happen to us, but the only thing that truly matters is what happens within us. Which one are you?

wooden man climbing the stairs

Colonel Sanders | Kentucky Fried Chicken

Once, there was an older man, who was broke, living in a tiny house, and owned a beat-up car. He was living off of $99 social security checks. At 65 years of age, he decides things had to change. So he thought about what he had to offer. His friends raved about his chicken recipe. He decided that this was his best shot at making a change.

He left Kentucky and traveled to different states to try to sell his recipe. He told restaurant owners that he had a mouthwatering chicken recipe. He offered the recipe to them for free, just asking for a small percentage of the items sold. Sounds like a good deal, right?

Unfortunately, not to most of the restaurants. He heard NO over 1000 times. Even after all of those rejections, he didn’t give up. He believed his chicken recipe was something special. He got rejected 1009 times before he heard his first yes.

With that one success, Colonel Hartland Sanders changed the way Americans eat chicken. Kentucky Fried Chicken, popularly known as KFC, was born.

Remember, never give up and always believe in yourself in spite of rejection.

 A Very Special Bank Account

Imagine you had a bank account that deposited $86,400 each morning. The account carries over no balance from day to day, allows you to keep no cash balance, and every evening cancels whatever part of the amount you had failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every dollar each day!

We all have such a bank. Its name is Time. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever time you have failed to use wisely. It carries over no balance from day to day. It allows no overdraft so you can’t borrow against yourself or use more time than you have. Each day, the account starts fresh. Each night, it destroys an unused time. If you fail to use the day’s deposits, it’s your loss and you can’t appeal to get it back.

There is never any borrowing time. You can’t take a loan out on your time or against someone else’s. The time you have is the time you have and that is that. Time management is yours to decide how you spend the time, just as with money you decide how you spend the money. It is never the case of us not having enough time to do things, but the case of whether we want to do them and where they fall in our priorities.

cut diamond

Lost and Found: The Kohinoor Diamond

Raju, Deepu and Sonia were walking down from school one day. They all lived in a lane near Red Fort in Delhi. They were fighting over who got better marks in the History half-yearly exam.
Sonia was smiling. She had a speaking disability so she could not speak much. She listened to the other two fight. She had scored seventy percent in her exams. She showed her paper to her friends.

“That’s nothing. Even I scored seventy percent. But I have a ‘very good’ remark with five stars,” Deepu said. “I got a seventy percent too. But ma’am told me I was the best student in class,” Raju exclaimed happily. A young boy was walking behind them. He heard them talking and quickly overtook them. As he hurried past them, he dropped a shiny looking stone on the road.

Raju ran and picked up the stone. “Hey, you dropped this!” he shouted. The boy stopped, looked back and saw Raju holding the stone in his hand, calling him to come back. He walked
back to him. “Oh, thank you! My mother would have scolded me so much!” he said.

“Not a problem. But what is this?” asked Raju. The boy looked left and right. He looked all around before leading Raju to a corner of the road. Deepu and Sonia, feeling left out, went behind them too. “Don’t tell anybody. This is a part of the Kohinoor diamond! You know about it, don’t you?” he asked Raju.

“Kohinoor?” Raju could not contain his excitement. “Yes, of course! It was a part of the decorations of this very fort we are standing in front of. The Red Fort! And it was taken by the Britishers,” he said. Sonia nodded her head vigorously. Not just that. Our government is negotiating with the British government to get it back,” said Deepu.

“Wow, you guys know it all!” said the boy. “So you know that a part of it was kept back by the soldiers of the Red Fort? They knew it was going to be stolen and broke it into two and kept the bigger part here,” he said. Raju cleared his throat, and said, “Of course! I know that!” Deepu and Sonia nodded their heads. “You three are very smart,” the boy said. “Tell you what? You can take this part of the gem and show it to your parents.”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” shouted the boys and Sonia, silently in her mind. “Here, take it. But, you must give me something that I can keep against this diamond,” the boy said. “You see, we are
meeting for the first time.” “What is your name?” asked Raju. “Deepak”, said the boy. “Very well, Deepak. We will give you our mobile phones,” Raju said. “That’s all we have now.”

“But that won’t be enough in return for such a precious diamond I’m giving you,” said Deepak. “But our mobiles are very expensive!” exclaimed Deepu. “Oh ok, that is fine,” Deepak said, taking the phones from Deepu and Raju.

“We will return the Kohinoor in the evening to you, Deepak,” said Deepu, and they all ran off to Raju’s home first. Excitedly, they thrust the diamond under Raju’s
father’s nose. Raju’s father looked up from his work book. “What is this?” he asked. “Uncle, Deepak gave it to us to show it to you all!” said Deepu, not being able to contain his excitement. “It’s a part of the Kohinoor!”

“Who Deepak? Kohinoor? What Kohinoor?” asked Raju’s father. “The Kohinoor Diamond, Papa! This one!” Raju said. “Where did you get that? Who is this Deepak who gave it to you? Has he been home before?” asked his father. “N….n…no, Papa,” Raju stammered, the colour of his face going pale.

“What have I told you? Where have you heard that there is a Kohinoor Diamond in India presently?” he asked. “I…I…I don’t remember now,” Raju said. “Also, a diamond cannot be broken down unless by another diamond itself! And that’s very rarely done,” Raju’s father continued. “It’s the hardest found substance in nature. It is almost always used to cut other substances.”

Raju, Deepu and Sonia looked at him, stunned. They did not know what to say. Sonia was the first one to react. She started crying. Raju’s father looked at her, then Raju. He hit his head with his palm and sank into his chair. The three children sat down beside him, both Raju and Deepu were also in tears by now. Raju’s father composed himself. “Get up kids! You lost your phones but you gained something very valuable today,” he said.

The children looked up. They could not understand. Hadn’t they just lost their phones to a thief? “That’s right. We have all gained a valuable lesson from
this theft. Remember, you may know a lot, but you don’t know everything. So, the next time you don’t know something, think twice before acting,” he advised. Then he added, gently, “It will be far more useful for you to admit it to yourself and then act upon something.” He held their hands as they walked towards the door.

He left them at the door and went off in search of the stolen mobiles. The three children did not move from the door till he was out of sight.
***
Moral: There are a lot of things we know because we have learned about them in books or from others. But there are a lot more things we know nothing about (like, maybe, that there’s no broken piece of Kohinoor in India). So, it’s important to know that you do not know everything. Only when you accept this, you will not act in haste and keep learning and become better in everything you do in life.

“Knowing what you don’t know is more useful than being brilliant – Charlie Munger

hourglass on a sunset beach

On God’s Time

A man walked to the top of a hill to talk to God.

The man asked, “God, what’s a million years to you?” and God said, “A minute.”

Then the man asked, “Well, what’s a million dollars to you?” and God said, “A penny.”

Then the man asked, “God…..can I have a penny?” and God said, “Sure…..in a minute.”

silhuoette of woman climbing the top of a mountain

The Right Place

A mother and a baby camel were lying around under a tree.

Then the baby camel asked, “Why do camels have humps?”

The mother camel considered this and said, “We are desert animals so we have the humps to store water so we can survive with very little water.”

The baby camel thought for a moment then said, “Ok…why are our legs long and our feet rounded?”

The mama replied, “They are meant for walking in the desert.”

The baby paused. After a beat, the camel asked, “Why are our eyelashes long? Sometimes they get in my way.”

The mama responded, “Those long thick eyelashes protect your eyes from the desert sand when it blows in the wind.

The baby thought and thought. Then he said, “I see. So the hump is to store water when we are in the desert, the legs are for walking through the desert and these eyelashes protect my eyes from the desert then why in the Zoo?”

Moral: Skills and abilities are only useful if you are in the right place at the right time. Otherwise, they go to waste.

Motivational short stories are great mediums to empower you and can bring in profound lessons you never even thought of. If you want to read more motivational stories but in the form of novels, here’s a list. We’ve listed amazing biographies, self-help books, and fiction that can motivate you!

I'm Nikos Alepidis, blogger at motivirus. I'm passioned for all things related to motivation & personal development. My goal is to help and inspire people to become better.

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