A stitch in time saves nine
(An ounce of prevention is worth a
pound of cure)
“Never leave that till
tomorrow, which you can do today”
-Benjamin Franklin-
The proverb, ‘A stitch in time saves nine’ is applicable to a
host of situations. This proverb literally means that if one does not
immediately sew a small hole in a garment eventually the small hole will take
on the proportion of a big fever and the garment might beyond the state of
repair.
This old adage ‘A stitch in time saves nine’ is similar in
meaning to another one in Hindi language “AAJ KA KAAM KAL PAR NA TALO”
The first instance of phrase, ‘a stitch in time saves nine’ appeared in 1732.
It was printed in a book called ‘Gnomolygia’, by Thomas Fuller.
It was unknown if he coined the phrase, or simply used a proverb popular during
the time. In the 1800’s Louisa
May Alcott (author of ‘Little Women’) brought the phrase back into
popularity in a short story she wrote entitled ‘Kitty’s Day Class’.
“There is enough time” or
“Might be next time”, this kind of phrases are commonly used in our society by
student, teachers as well as our relatives that is why they neglect their works
and duties even they would be very close to their intentions and doing thus,
they come under the circle of failures according to Thomas A. Edison’s quote
“many of life’s failures are people who didn’t realize how close they to success
when they gave up”. Most times we tend to neglect small things pushing them to
the back of our minds, this neglect later result in bigger losses. Don’t wait
for tomorrow because, you will never get today back.
The point is
illustrated by the well known story of the boy who acquired the evil habit of
stealing and indulgent and fond mother didn’t punish him for it. He was
encouraged by her attitude, and pretty thefts soon led on to much greater
thefts. Ultimately the result was dacoit and murder and he was sentenced to be
hung till death. His last wish was a few words with his mother, when his mother
came he pretended as if he wanted to whisper something in her ears. But when
she came nearer, he cut off her ears, and told she was responsible for his disgraceful
death. If she had punished him for stealing in the very beginning, he would
never have become a dacoit and murderer.
Similarly, in the every walk of life things must be set right
in the very beginning in order to avoid much future trouble and expenditure.
Sometimes, if the evil is not put down in the very beginning, it may become
unmanageable and may not be remedied at all.
The truth of the proverb will become clear if we consider an example
from our day to day life. If one does not study through the year and hopes to
pass the examinations only by studying at the last moment, much more effort and
time will have to be put in the preparation and still the retention would not
be as effective as it would have been, if the work was done regularly through
the year. Postponement of any work, that you do not find pleasant, is also bad.
Putting off thing is also unpleasant because it robs you of your peace of the
mind; it leaves you restless and churlish. And what a tremendous feeling of
satisfaction and content there is, if the job is finished on time without the
last-minute mad rush. Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible,
and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
So to say that ‘a
stitch in time saves nine’ is indeed the wisest course of action to follow.
Accomplishing a task which has to be done, however unpleasant, makes you happy
and contented in the world.
There are
main three obstacles for ‘why se postpone or neglect our works’. First,
we are told from childhood onwards that everything we want to do is impossible.
We grow up with this idea, and as the years accumulate, so too do the layers of
prejudice, fear and guilt. There comes a time when our personal calling is so
deeply buried in our soul as to be invisible. But it’s still there. If we have
courage to disinter our dream, we are then faced by the second obstacle:
love. We know what we want to do, but are afraid of hurting those around us by
abandoning everything in order to pursue our dream. We do not realize that love
is just a further impetus, not something that will prevent us going forward.
Oscar Wilde said “each man kills the thing he loves”.
Once
we had accepted that love is a stimulus, we come up against the third
obstacle: fear of defeats we will meet on the path. This is the most dangerous
of the obstacles because; it has a kind of saintly aura about it: renouncing
joy and conquest. But if we believe ourselves worthy of the thing we fought so
hard to get, then we become an instrument of God, we help the soul of the
world, and we understand why we are here.
I ask myself
“are defeats necessary?” well, necessary or not, they happen. When we
first begin fighting for our dreams we have no experience and make many
mistakes but at last we get ready to overcome all the defeats.
This is stark reality that if you is going to do something he will fail
but, this doesn’t mean that you should stop your works and give up because,
success is a journey from one failure to another without losing any type of
enthusiasm, if today you are fail then congratulations! Because, your journey
started on the way to success.
You
can fail your way to success, even Napoleon lost one third of all the
important battles he fought but he tried his best and gained the power and said
“impossible is not a word in my dictionary”. There are people who might fail…..
Fail about 9999 times and yet with a smile say “I learnt 9999
times how not to make an electric bulb…” And after many more such attempts Thomas
Edison did invent the electric bulb and went on to create way back in 1879
an organization called ‘general Electric’. At first people refuse to
believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to think it can’t
be done, then they see it can be done. Then it is done and the entire world
wonders why it was not done before.
If you
are waiting for the perfect moment, stop! Take the moment and make it perfect.
If you are waiting for your dreams to come true, stop! Take
the first step to make them real today, and the only acceptance you need is
from yourself. And remember one thing; never ever give up because, success is a
journey not a destination, then, drill it in your mind ‘if there is anyone who
can save you it is YOU’.
‘A
stitch in time saves nine’ applies to everyone and this phrase can be applied
to almost everything in our lives. Procrastination is the thief of time, so we
must make sure to make a timely stitch which will prevent us from having to
make several later.
-Shaikh Asadullah-
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