Once a king was sailing on the sea with some his courtiers. There was also this young man who had never been to sea who got very frightened with all tossing up and down of the ship. He was so terrified by it all that he sat in a corner screaming and wailing. Many tried to calm him down, and the king himself could hardly stand it any more.
The king’s physician offered to cure the young man, if His Majesty would give the permission, which was promptly granted.
The physician ordered the seamen to throw the screaming courtier overboard. They were all so annoyed with the courtier that they promptly executed the order. Gasping for air, as you can imagine, the young man thrashed about in the water and cried for help. After he has had a few gulps of seawater, and was nearly drowning with fear, the physician ordered him to be pulled out. From then on he sat quietly in a corner.
The king couldn’t understand and so he asked the physician for an explanation.
“He had never experienced the sea,” answered the physician, “and didn’t know how dangerous it can be. So he did not also know, how good it was to have a ship between himself and the sea.”
Our worries often result from a lack of appreciation of the blessings that we have.
