Breaking the Sugar Habit – An Inspirational Story attributed to Gandhi

One of the things I love about life is hearing inspirational stories and the following story – Breaking the Sugar Habit – is one that I have used several times in my life.

I was reminded about it this morning in my meditation, so I wanted to share it. I don’t know where I heard it first or even if it happened, however I enjoy the underlying message.

Apparently during the 1930′s, a young boy became obsessed with eating sugar. His mother was quite upset with this and had tried so many ways to try and stop her son from eating it. However none of them seemed to work, so she decided to take her son to go and see his idol – Mahatma Gandhi, in the hope her son may listen to him.

They walked for miles under the scorching sun to reach Gandhi’s ashram. There she shared with Gandhi her situation – She walked miles, for hours under scorching sun to finally reach Gandhi’s ashram. There, she shared with Gandhi her predicament – “Gandhi, my son consumes far too much sugar, will you please tell him it’s bad for his health?”

After listening to the woman patiently, Gandhi thought for a while and refused to give the boy advice and told her to return in two weeks.

The mother left a little perplexed and wondered why Gandhi had not asked the boy to stop eating sugar straight away.

Two weeks later they returned to visit Gandhi. This time Gandhi looked at the boy and said – Gandhi looked directly at the boy and said “Boy, you should stop eating sugar. It is not good for your health.”

The boy nodded towards Gandhi and said he would do his best to stop eating sugar. The boy’s mother was curious as to why Gandhi needed two weeks to tell her son that. Gandhi smiled to her and said “Two weeks ago I had an obsession with sugar. I needed that time to cut back myself.”

What has this story reminded you? For me, I only share things I have found useful or have had experienced or had experience with. Fortunately life has blessed me with many experiences and I must say I wouldn’t be able to tell people to stop eating sugar at the moment (as chocolate is my comfort food at the moment!).

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If you liked this story, you may like to have a look at these stories as well –

• Zen Story – A Cup of Tea
• A Tail of Happiness
• Zen Story – “Is that so?”…
• The Drowning Man Story/Parable
• Maybe so, maybe not…
• Stress Management