Awise man once lived in a village. People from around the village used to come to him and narrate their sad stories so that he could find a solution for them. As his fame increased, he realised that the villagers used to bring the same stories again and again just because their sadness forced them to go to the wise old man to calm their heart.

Soon, the house of the wise old man was filled with visitors who were so regular that the old man was becoming fed up of them. He wanted to somehow make the regulars reduce their frequency of visiting him but he could not say this to them directly because he was a kind man and did not want to hurt their feelings.

He kept thinking of a solution for some time, but could not find it. Disappointed, he opened the daily newspaper and started reading it when he came across a joke. He liked it so much that he decided to tell this joke to everyone. And it seemed he had found a solution to the problem that he was encountering for many days.

The next day, when people started coming to his house, gathered them around him. He waited until noon so that all the visitors had circled the wise man. Everyone was clueless about what the wise man was going to tell. The wise man did a rather peculiar thing. He started off telling the joke he had read last night. The humour in the joke added to the surprise the people got, causing them to roar with laughter.

After this, the wise man started talking randomly and in the middle of it, he repeated the same joke. Some of the listeners smiled whilst the others stared at him. Then, the wise man continued his talk and when the talk had turned really boring, he repeated the joke. This time all of them stared at the wise man.

One of them became angry and roared, “I’ve been here for the past six hours thinking that I would get a clue to solve my queries and all you have done it to test my patience!”

“This is exactly the response that I expected from you,” the wise man exclaimed. “When at first I told you the joke, you all laughed. When the second time I told, some of you smiled. But when I told it the third time, none of you even smiled!”

The old man continued. “You can’t laugh at the same joke over and over again. So why are you always crying about the same problem?”

The listeners were speechless and looked at each other in surprise. They went home a little wiser that day and the wise man felt that he had finally managed to have an impact on the villagers.

So readers, how many time in life have you worried for the same problem again and again? Stop doing this as worrying won’t solve your problems, it will just waste your time and energy.

Published in Dawn, Young World, May 30th, 2020