 Once upon a time there lived a king who had three beautiful queens. They were so beautiful that on the night of the full moon you couldn't actually tell which of the four of them, the four meaning between the three queens and the full moon, you couldn't actually tell which of the four of them was the real moon. They were that beautiful. Now one night as the king is sleeping outside on the terrace, you know how in ancient times people used to sleep outside in the hot weather so the king and his three queens are sleeping outside on the terrace when suddenly the king wakes up in the middle of the night and he notices the queen who's lying right next to him and he thinks she is so beautiful. You know the moonlight is falling on her face and she's almost glowing with the magic of the moon and he thinks she is the most beautiful of my queens. I have three beautiful queens but she is the most beautiful one of all. But just then he notices his second queen. The second queen is lying in the shadow of the trellis and there are stripes of moonlight and shade falling across her face and the king looks at her and he thinks no no how could I have been so wrong. She is the most beautiful of my queens. Not only is she the most beautiful of my queens, she is the most beautiful woman in the world. But just then he notices his third queen. The third queen is lying fully in the shade except for one ray of moonlight that's lighting up her beautiful perfect little ear with the little tiny lotus butt tucked behind it and he thinks no. I was entirely wrong. She is the most beautiful of my queens. She's not just the most beautiful woman in the entire world. I think she's the most beautiful woman in the universe. But just then he notices his first queen again and he thinks no no maybe she's the most beautiful of my queens but then he sees the second one and he thinks no maybe I was wrong. That's the most beautiful but then he sees the third and then back to the first and back and forth and back and forth all night long. The king walks between his three sleeping queens looking out down at them and trying to decide which one is the most beautiful. Now by morning he hasn't had a wink or sleep. His eyes are red. He's all puffy underneath. He's exhausted. He goes to his prime minister and he says you need to help me find out which of my three queens is the most beautiful woman of all. The prime minister says to him he says why is that so important? Isn't it enough that you have three beautiful women as your queens as your wives and not only are they beautiful on the outside they're really beautiful on the inside too. They love you. They love the people of your kingdom. They do so much for everybody in the kingdom. Why does it matter who is more beautiful than the other? And the king says yes it matters. I am a great king and I have spent the entire night wide awake and my night of wakefulness shall not go to waste. So you will help me find out which of my queens is the most beautiful one of all. And the prime minister thinks to himself he says well maybe that is my duty after all to advise the king no matter how stupid he is. Just as if a horse is completely wild and the rider cannot actually tame it it is still the rider's responsibility to make sure that he guides the horse so that it does not come to any harm. In the same way maybe it is my duty to guide the king no matter how stupid he is so that he does not come to any harm and he doesn't bring anybody else to any harm either. And so he says to the king he says okay I have a plan. In our kingdom lives a man called Kantigre. Now everybody hates Kantigre. He's the most despised man in the kingdom because he's an absolute womanizer and there isn't any woman of any kind of beauty that he hasn't tried to hit on. But because of this very habit of his he's also capable of judging the degrees of beauty in women. They say that even better than a swan can extract milk out of water Kantigre is able to distinguish between the shades of beauty in a woman. Now just before I go any further I want to explain this idea of swans being able to extract milk out of water. In ancient Indian literature this is a very famous metaphor that swans can separate or they can extract milk out of water because swans chew on the lotus root which grows under water and the lotus root is filled with a sort of milky sap so when they chew on it they managed to drink the sap out of it and from that the saying has become that swans can extract milk out of water and from that it's become like a comparison. So you say that so-and-so can do this even better than a swan can extract milk out of water. So in this case Kantigre is being compared to the ultimate metaphor of perfection that he can do something even better that he can distinguish between the shades of beauty in a woman even better than a swan is able to extract milk from water which is like an almost impossible thing to do but back to the story. So the prime minister says to the king he says I have a plan in our kingdom lives a man called Kantigre who is the most hated man in the kingdom he's the most despised man in the kingdom because he's an absolute womanizer but because of this very habit of his he's able to distinguish between the shades of beauty in a woman so let's invite him to come to the court tomorrow and we will present the queens to him and get him to tell us which one is the most beautiful one of all. So the next day Kantigre is brought to the court and one by one the queens are made to walk in front of him. The first queen walks past Kantigre and Kantigre's breath almost stops. The second queen works past and his heart almost stops. The third queen walks past and he almost faints but as the three queens leave the room the king turns to Kantigre and says now you've seen all my queens tell me which one is the most beautiful one of all and Kantigre suddenly realizes the danger that he is in because think about it these are three very powerful women they're all three queens and he has to decide which one is the most beautiful one of all I mean this sort of thing never ends well. He realizes that if he makes this choice if he even tries to make this choice his life could be in danger and so he decides that he's just not going to answer the question at all. So he says to the king he says you know this sort of question needs a great deal of time and thought so I'll go home today I'll think about it all night long and I will come back to you tomorrow and give you my answer but his real plan is that he is going to run away in the middle of the night and just never be seen in this kingdom again. The prime minister however he's an intelligent man he realizes that Kantigre is planning to escape in the middle of the night and so he manages to trick the answer out of him. So where does this actually leave us with the story is this a happily ever after ending after all the king now has the answer to the question that had kept him up all night well when the king finds out which is the most beautiful of his wives he makes her his favorite and he gives her all of the power the other two become very jealous and they have her poisoned they have her killed and when the king finds out what they have done he has them put to death and so having started off with three beautiful wives he now has no wives at all finds himself feeling very alone falls into depression and ends up killing himself. So maybe not quite the happily ever after ending that you were expecting but the point is what is the lesson from this story what is the story actually trying to teach us aside from the fact that the king was an extremely stupid man with far too much time on his hands what is the lesson that we take away from this story it's a very simple lesson but an extremely important one and it's simply to be able to understand when to stop not to drag something out when to stop when to let go they say that you get to control things up to a point so up to a point you will control your decisions you can control your actions you can control the consequences of your actions but after that point it gets taken out of your hands you see other factors come in and the whole thing becomes bigger it's like a snowball effect it becomes bigger than you and then the universe takes over and you have no control after that on what is going to happen not to you and not to anybody else either and so if you want to be able to stay in control you need to be able to figure out where that point is you need to be able to stop you need to be able to let go because if you carry on dragging something out unfortunately it's a downhill track from there and there's no winning from that point so remember the next time you find yourself dragging something out and you know you should stop because we always know when we should stop but you can't actually bring yourself to stop remind yourself of the story and step back it's the best thing that you can do for yourself