link<\/a>\u00a0to a site which features the short story.<\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In Tolstoy’s work, a king of a fictitious country searched for the meaning of three of the most important questions in life. He sought the answers from many people and he got various responses. Yet, he was unsatisfied and went out to seek the answers from a hermit. The events that happened thereafter led to the acquisition of the answer, even without the\u00a0king himself knowing it in the first place.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In Muth’s adaptation, in place of the\u00a0king was a boy named Nikolai. Nikolai sought the answers from three of his animal companions, yet as in Tolstoy’s work, none gave him a satisfying answer. The hermit in Muth’s book came in the form of an old turle.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I’m\u00a0 not going to go further, since spoilers will not do justice to Tolstoy’s and Muth’s works. Yet suffice to say that I was truly inspired, having read the Muth’s book during my journey in the MBTA subway train from Harvard Square to Longwood Avenue in Boston, so much so that I wrote a short note on the underside of the book’s cover which was meant to be read by my supervisor’s baby after he learns how to read. The note is meant to be a ‘time capsule’, only to be read by the baby when he learns how to read, which should be in a couple of years from now (the book is meant for ages 5-9 years!) and to be understood by him for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n
End note: I wish to share the Three Questions mentioned in the book and the answers to them. I found these questions to be very thought-provoking and they struck a deep chord which resonated strongly withing me.<\/p>\n
1. When is the best time to do things?<\/strong><\/p>\n2. Who is the most important one?<\/strong><\/p>\n3. What is the right thing to do?<\/strong><\/p>\nNikolai in Muth’s book pondered upon these questions in his effort to be a good boy. The king in Tolstoy’s work was confident that the answers to these three questions would enable him to not fall in any undertakings.<\/p>\n
The answers to these questions, in the words of the hermit, are:<\/p>\n
“Remember then: there is only one time that is important\u2014 Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. The most necessary man is he with whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with any one else: and the most important affair is, to do him good, because for that purpose alone was man sent into this life!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nTo paraphrase the hermit’s words, the answers are, in the above sequence:<\/p>\n
1) NOW is the best time to do things.<\/strong><\/p>\n2) The person next to us is the right thing to do.<\/strong><\/p>\n3) To do good to the person next to us is the most important thing to do.<\/strong><\/p>\nI hope you all find this inspiring. I must end by saying that it’s ironic that a young adult like myself had to learn of this inspirational piece of work from a children’s storybook. Nonetheless, it’s never too late to learn.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I chanced upon this book when I was getting a gift for my supervisor’s firstborn child. Before this, I had given much thought on the most suitable gift for his son – the common ones like a teddy bear or a\u00a0toy car\u00a0or an alphabet book did cross my mind. Yet I felt that none of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":491,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shenhanlee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shenhanlee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shenhanlee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shenhanlee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/491"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shenhanlee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shenhanlee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shenhanlee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shenhanlee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shenhanlee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}