A friend sent me a simple little story with a beautiful moral. Thought I will share it with you 🙂
“I hired a plumber to help me restore an old farmhouse, and after he had just finished a rough first day on the job, a flat tyre made him lose an hour of work, his electric drill quit and his ancient one-ton truck refused to start. While I drove him home, he sat in stony silence.
On arriving he invited me in to meet his family. As we walked towards the front door, he paused briefly at a tree, touching the tips of the tree. When opening the door he underwent an amazing transformation.
His tanned face was wreathed in smiles and he hugged his two small children and gave his wife a kiss. Afterward he walked me to the car. We passed the tree and my curiosity got the better of me. I asked him about what I had seen
him do earlier.
Oh, that’s my trouble tree,” he replied. “I know I can’t help having troubles on the job, but one thing’s for sure, those troubles don’t belong in the house with my wife and the children. So I just hang them up on the tree every night when I come home and ask God to take care of them. Then in the morning I pick them up again. “Funny thing is,” he smiled, “when I come out in the morning to pick them up, there aren’t nearly as many as I remember hanging up the night before.”
Problems and stress are common at work place. But we all need to find our own ways to leave them behind. Our homes must always be joyful.
Cheers! 🙂
Breath of Joy 
I have a tree out front. I think I will hang my troubles there before I enter my house tomorrow. Maybe it will help! All of the Coronavirus warnings and fears are making me tired and disheartened.
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That’s such a lovely thing to do Mary. I pray to keep you and you family happy and healthy always. I’m sure anything done in faith will always come true and do hang your troubled feelings on the the tree. 👍🌳
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Well said! So true but we forget to practice it Thanks Dilip.
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What you say is true Rashmi we do forget but gotta keep trying isn’t it?
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Beautiful story to remind us to appreciate little things around us that bring us joys and happiness! How sweet!! Thank you!
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A big thank you Indah for reviving the sweet inspiration of this little story. Yes our homes must be always filled with joy and the worldly troubles be left to God who always takes care.
Grateful and cheers 🙂
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Thank you for sharing this story. Right away my thoughts went to why God is Awesome and the fact that he died on Calveries Tree. To take those sins and burdens daily for me. Great Story!
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That’s a lovely response. It adds much more value to the post.
Thank you 🙂
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Hey Dilip, This is a wonderful story. Thanks for sharing this. Charu
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Hi and welcome Charu. Yes this story does make us think on bringing our work related worries home. Glsd you liked it.
Cheers 🙂
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A wonderful message!!!
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The story made my day 🙂 Thanks for sharing ! 🙂
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I am delighted to hear that. Thanks 🙂
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Good post
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Thanks 🙂
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I love this Dilip. Everyone should have one of those trees. Margie
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Lucky me I have quite a few outside my house 🙂
Thanks Margie and cheers!
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What a lovely message Dilip! A hook like Khaula says – we are not all fortunate to have trees in our urban jungles – outside every door for this purpose should be mandatory 🙂
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True very true – ya anything is fine as long as we leave our problems behind.
Thanks Madhu 🙂
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That was such a great story…especially for us New Yorkers. Congratulations on a great blog! I can learn from you. 🙂
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Thank you for your appreciation. Cheers.
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I got to read this at the right moment when some problems at work place have been troubling me for the last 2-3 weeks. I try to share them with my husband but in vain – he could never get it fully (quite natural). I end up spoiling the fine family evenings.
Should think of having a trouble tree and stop dragging these problems in to the warmth of my little home. Thanks a lot for sharing this!
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How nice of you to appreciate. It’s a story but its essence is real.
Many thanks.
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Such a great story! Finding the perfect balance in life is always so difficult, but it’s important to practice the concept of mindfulness. 🙂 I like your idea of a home being a sanctuary–this was a lovely read.
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Glad you liked the story. And yes we all need to constantly strive to achieve a balance between work and home. Thanks for stopping by.
Cheers 🙂
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I have heard this story before but it is something we should always remember – and maybe perhaps plant our own trouble tree. Thank you for sharing these words of wisdom.
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Gracious of you to appreciate. Yes we need to find our own trouble tree. Thanks Patty.
Best regards.
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I hope we can all do this – it is wonderful advice, and would make us much more productive and better people for either the home or for work. I enjoyed reading this. Thanks.
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Nice of you to appreciate. Thanks 🙂
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Thank you, Sir! We talk a lot about achieving work-life balance or work-life integration. This story is all about work-life compartmentalization and very useful indeed! Home is our safe habour. Let’s leave the storm behind when we come back to home, sweet home after a hard day’s work.
Regards,
Geetha
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Hi Geetha very well said. We need to find our own ways to leave our problems behind. And as it says in the story by morning some problems may even disappear on their own.
Many thanks for stopping by and wish you all the best.
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What a good idea, leaving your troubles outside the front door. We should all nail a hook outside to remember to hang up those troubles and not bring them inside the house.
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Ha Ha why not. Anything that works!
Thanks for stopping by! Cheers 🙂
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That’s a really interesting way to achieve something that can be quite difficult. I think we all need a “trouble tree”.
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Glad you liked this one Binky. I am sure my wombat friends are smart enough not to need a ‘trouble-tree’. 🙂
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The humans around her could use a big one, though!
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Ha Ha true – may be more than one 🙂
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Dear Sriram
With due respects to your views. I daresay, you have interpreted this beautiful narrative in a rather serious manner. The purpose of this narration was not to evade issues that face you, but to serve as a reminder for not taking your office troubles home & vice versa. The intention being: to focus on what we set out to do for the major part of the day; being our profession or job; thereafter, on return home from work, we must focus on family by giving them our undivided attention. We can achieve this efficiently provided we don’t distract ourselves from the problems peculiar to workplace & home.
However, in a different context, I fully agree with your point on response being preferable to a reaction any situation.
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It is a tough thing to do but a “must” to learn if you are a classroom teacher. After a day at inner city minority school who wants to come home to more kids, their insanity and their stupid homework? Often can turn on the cheery me side but too exhausted for much else. Tragedy when the jobs robs us from our family.
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Oh yes Carl I can understand just what you mean. I too happen to be a teacher 🙂
Thanks.
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dear sir,
though an interesting anecdote, it is fraught with the danger of over simplification. Instead of hanging these ‘troubles’ onto a tree (poor tree!) one needs to get to the root of these ‘problems’ and find a solution thats more permanent than just postponing them.
The ‘problems’ cited in the anecdote are about things that happen to us rather than we making them happen. So when things happen to us the key is our response to them.
Steven Covey mentions in his ‘Seven Habits’ book that he came across an eastern philosophical book in which was the line – “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness.” and that set him on the path to the seven habits which are more about preparing us for the making the choices that drive our responses that lead to growth & happiness.
This is where Eastern Philosophy differs from the Western. The Westerners seek ‘temporary’ solutions which work in the short run, but there is always a chance of going back to where one was, and the Easterners sought to get rid of the ‘problems’ permanently without regressing back to the ‘norm’.
So instead of troubling the tree, the man actually should understand that when things happen to him, he has this choice of reacting to them either with a sense of despondency and frustration or with a sense of given this has happened what do i do about it?
If we look at history or the autobiographies of ‘great’ souls, they are replete with anecdotes of responses that ‘changed’ the course of not only their destiny, but also of mankind in general. So powerful is the ‘appropriate’ response to situations.
Things happened to Gandhi on a train in South Africa. How did he respond? was that a ‘common’ response? if he had responded like – i think they played by the rules, let me learn to ‘obey’ them – then perhaps India & South Africa would still be under British rule!
So perhaps the way to look at this anecdote too is – how does one respond when things happen to you? by hanging them on the tree are we getting the better of them? what is a response that will ensure that i never have to ‘hang’ things on to a ‘pore ol tree again!
Cheers!
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An impressionable story, the Moral of which, each of us need to imbibe & continue to sharpen the axe periodically, to attain peace of mind. Lets not forget, we work most for those, we love most!!
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Wow Sunder that exactly is what the theme is all about! I like that “continue to sharpen the axe periodically, to attain peace of mind”!
Many thanks my friend. Cheers 🙂
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It is true, Dilip. A home is a kind of “sanctuary” and as such we should respect it and leave it “clean”! Great story!
Thank you, Dilip!
🙂
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So glad you liked the story Marina. What you say is very true!
Cheers 🙂
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How very true…we need to learn to strike a balance between work and personal life.. Will make a lot of difference in life
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Oh yes work-life balance is a challenge which we all need to work on. Thanks for stopping by 🙂
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The essence of life actually lies in these small learnings.
I plan to start hanging my problems in the lamp post outside my house…once I am back from office… 🙂
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Glad you found the little story worthwhile. We all need to find our ways not to carry our burdens when unnecesaary 🙂
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