The son of a knife-maker quit his studies and came back home. He thought he could run the household by doing what his father did, without having any big dreams.
One day, the father asked his son to carve a knife out of iron and shape it. He lit the fire and let it blaze. But the son stayed stuck. He was scared of heating such hot iron and just let it cool down for a bit.
So he tried to shape the knife using the iron that had cooled down many times. But even after trying for a long time, he couldn’t do it. He realized the job was really hard.
Father looked at him for a moment and said, “I’ve been making knives out of iron for so many years. And you still haven’t learned even a tiny bit of what I’m doing. What could be worse than that?”
The son remained silent. “I thought,” he said shortly after, “that making a knife would be easier than studying. But today I realized that knives aren’t easy either.”
The father added, “You naturally care about what matters to you. Remember, a knife’s shape can only be formed when the iron is hot.”