Life episode: 1001 Stories-The Arabian Nights


“Auntie, please tell me a story before I sleep” that little boy asked me many years ago. I remembered that at the end of the story he would ask me again, “One more story please” Today he sat in front of me with his family during lunchtime and he told his wife, “Look auntie has more gray hairs now” Sigh … time flies so fast.

I just love stories. Especially 1001 nights or The Arabian nights, I grown up with stories and I learnt more moral and attitudes from them. Back to my childhood, my mother told stories every night. At the age I could read, my father bought me stories books.  Life was full of stories. Now I see each of our life has it own story.

My father said to me, “Listen and look all people’s stories around you, you will learn more from them and you don’t have to pass the same path if you know they made mistake in their life… Their stories will save your life. They help you to make a short cut to find your happiness”

It was a simple and true lesson in life.  If you could stop and look around, you can see each of us has own story of life. 

If you ever hear or read about the 1001 nights stories or famous as The Arabian Nights, it consists of tales, poem, love, tragedy, comedy and historical stories. It is started with the story about the king who found unfaithful women in his life and then he decided women were the same. For the sake of his grief he began to marry virgins only to execute the next morning. Until a girl came to be his bride and she started to tell a story every night, she successfully built the king’s curiosity to know the end of the story. And the king had to wait another day. The story had saved the girl’s life. She could continue telling 1001 stories; as the result the king changed his mind about the women.

The same thing in life if we can build our curiosity about our story, it can build the motivation to know … what is the next story, it can be a happy story, funny story or even a sad story.  We can learn from one story to another story to save our life from making mistakes in life and to build a way to happiness.  Maybe we need more than 1001 nights to change our mind about life.  Life is day by day, we can have one story a day … and change our life.

Melody Beattie said, “Live your life from your heart. Share from your heart. And your story will touch and heal people's souls.”

I wish I had more than 1001 stories in my life to share with you.

**Lina Kartasasmita** Jakarta, May 5, 2013 at 6.53PM


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