How do you cope when things are not going so well? When you are facing an impossible situation that human strength alone cannot overcome, you'd better face up to it and accept the world as it is. Instead of blaming fate or other people, make the best use of the situation which you find yourself in and get more fun out of life with the strength of your wisdom.

I saw a couple of lovers who wanted to get married but couldn't. Their hearts were full of incomprehensible bitterness. By and by they realized that their sufferings were of no avail. They broke up cheerfully and happily, giving each other all sorts of friendly advice on living a respectable life.

Of course not everyone is capable of such sublime love, but there is something admirable about their wisdom in ridding themselves of that frustration in the pursuit of happiness and peace .

Let me tell you a thought-provoking adult fable. A man was roaming in the wilderness of a forest when all of a sudden he came across a hungry tiger. As the tiger started to pounce on him, the man scampered off as fast as he could run. But the tiger gave him no quarter. The man kept running until he came to a cliff edge. Standing near the cliff edge, the man said to himself: "Better to jump off the cliff than be mauled to death by the tiger. There might still be a chance of survival."

He plunged off the cliff and was lucky enough to be caught by a plum tree growing out of the rock face. He was thankful for his luck. Presently a loud roar came from deep within the cliff. It was a fierce lion looking up at him from the bottom of the cliff. The terrifying sound of the lion's roar made his heart beat with fright. What was worse, he turned his head and found a black rat and a white rat biting energetically into the trunk of the plum tree.

He was dismayed for a moment, but then he willed himself not to panic. "Better fall to my death when the trunk is gnawed off by the rats than be killed by the lion." So he decided to brush aside the immediate danger he was in. Seeing that the plums grew very well, he plucked a few and started to eat. He thought those plums were the best he had ever tasted. He thought to himself: "If I have to die sooner or later, why not have a good sleep before death?" He found himself a fork in the tree and went to sleep immediately.

He awoke to find that both the black rat and the white rat had vanished, and so had the tiger and the lion. He climbed cautiously up the tree branches and scrambled onto the top of the cliff, escaping the peril.

It turned out that the hungry tiger, unable to restrain itself, had leapt down the cliff as he fell fast asleep. The black rat and the white rat heard the tiger's roar and ran away in panic. Having jumped down the cliff, the tiger fought a fierce battle with the lion, and they both went away wounded.

The moral of the story is: Since the time of our birth, tribulation has been chasing us like a hungry tiger and death has been waiting like a fierce lion at the bottom of a cliff. And the alternation of day and night is like a black rat and a white rat who keep biting into the tree of our lives. One day, we'll fall into the lion's mouth.

Knowing that death is the worst thing that can happen, the best choice we can make is to enjoy comfortably the sweet fruits of our lives and go to sleep with ease of mind - with fewer desires and with a child's heart.

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