Balancing On A Pebble

A very good friend of mine sends this to me whenever I've been knocked off my feet. His good friend wrote this story of zen and wisdom, and I'm always so inspired by it

Two disciples were training together by the shore of a sea. Each was attempting to balance themselves on a very small pebble. Neither was gaining much success, and for quite some time neither was able to balance upon the pebble for longer than two minutes. Eventually, one of the disciples began to handle the task quite skillfully. For almost half an hour he managed to stay upon the pebble before losing his concentration and falling flat on his bottom. Out of frustration the disciple threw the pebble into the sea. “This is ridiculous,” he exclaimed, “what can we possibly learn from doing this?”The other disciple, who had just fallen again, said calmly as he stood up, “If you fall, rise back up, and prepare yourself for another fall.”