What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you read inspirational stories?
Inspirational stories are not just about being selfless and kind to others; it is also about loving yourself and letting yourself be and do what you actually like rather than thinking about what society would prefer you to do. At the end of the end, it is your life, your rules!
Here are some of the best inspirational short stories for young children that can really prove to change one’s perspective of what life is supposed to be.
Inspirational Short Stories Guide For You
1. Try to Break Free
A little boy was walking around his new village, Karanapuram, with their father, Suresh, when they noticed a big elephant tied around the house. When they went close to the house, they were both surprised at what they saw.
The elephant was neither kept in a cage nor it was protected from running by chains. There was just a small size rope that was keeping it there.
The little boy comes closer to the house’s gate, which was also locked with a small lock, at least something that an elephant could easily break. He asks, “Dad, can’t he escape easily?”
As Suresh was going to speak, a person came from behind and said, “Oh hello, do you want to come in and meet him?” as he opens the gate’s lock.
It was the house owner.
The little boy looks at Suresh with the cutest puppy dog eyes when his father says, “Fine, sure, but mind your behavior around the elephant, ok?”
He nods their head and goes inside the gate to look at the elephant more closely.
As he was looking at the elephant, the house owner bends his knees towards the boy and says, “So, young man, I heard you were wondering why he, the elephant, does not escape when he easily can?”
Suresh comes in between and says out of curiosity, “Yes, I was thinking about the same thing. He can break through the rope easily if he tried, you know.”
The owner stands up and says, “Of course, I totally agree with you. It can do that easily if it tries, but you need to believe in yourself for that, don’t you?”
The boy got puzzled and asked, gazing towards the owner, “What do you mean?”
He answers, “Ok, let me put it in this way. I bought this elephant years ago when it was a baby, and I used to tie him up with this same rope since then. So I believe that…”
The little boy continues, “That he doesn’t believe in himself enough to know that he has finally gained the strength to break free. He gave up on himself. So, he thinks that the rope can still hold him.”
The owner smiles and says, “Yes. You are a smart young man, aren’t you?” and the boy smiles back.
The Moral of This Inspirational Short Story Is that No Matter how Hard or Easy a Job Is, Someone Can’t Really Succeed if They Don’t Believe in One’s Abilities. Like the Elephant, It Was Not the Rope that Actually Stopped Him from Being Free; It Was Him Not Confident Enough About Himself.
So Never Let Any Kind of Rope Stop You from Doing Something Even if It Seems Difficult or Even Impossible. I Can Doubtlessly Say that If You Actually Believe in Yourself, a Difficult Problem Will Change to A ‘piece of Cake’ in No Time!
All It Requires Is Faith and Belief in Oneself. Just Learn to Believe in Yourself and Never Give up On Yourself.
2. React Wisely
This inspirational story is about a 13-year-old young girl who lived in a beautiful house. She belonged to an upper-middle-class family and had a pretty good normal life. She has always had these anger issues. One day, she fought with some girls over a very naive thing. After knowing about the fight, her father decided to teach her a lesson.
He calls her downstairs, “Sweetie, can you please come downstairs. I need to talk to you.”
The daughter comes down the stairs, and without her father saying something, she starts complaining about how the girls at the school are and somehow tried to convince him that she was right about fighting with them.
Her father didn’t react to what she said at all and says, “Sweetie, I want you to bring out some potatoes, a few eggs, and some ground coffee beans right now in a bowl.”
The daughter understands and brings them as soon as possible and asks, “Dad, what do you want these for?”
Father, while crisscrossing his legs, sitting on the chair, says, “Ria, touch them one by one and tell me what do you feel.”
The daughter does as her father asks of her and says, “They all feel the same, hard and round, just the size is different.”
The father smiles and tells her to take all the potatoes, eggs, and coffee beans and pours them into three different bowls with boiling water. He further instructs her to use the same size of the bowl and let them all sit and boil.
She observes how the boiling water is changing differently in all 3 bowls. After twenty minutes, the father turns off the stove and lets them rest on the shelf to cool down.
After some time, her father again asks her to touch the potatoes, eggs, and coffee beans and tells her how she feels about them now. This time the answer was totally different.
The daughter says, “The potato skin is now easier to peel because now the boiling water has turned it very soft, the ground coffee beans have a fresh coffee aroma, and the egg has turned fragile and thin outer shell protecting the liquid interior.”
Listening to Ria’s reply, he smiles and says, ” Did you notice how in the adverse situations, that is the boiling water, changes the condition of them so differently…?”
As she nods, he continues, “This is exactly how people react to the problems we get in life; some of us tend to find a solution, whereas many of us tend to lose our control and end up getting things out of our hands.”
She says, “But dad, I try. It’s not easy, you know, to control myself. It just feels like, as one problem is solved, another problem is just waiting to tackle me.”
Her father replies, “Oh darling, life is not supposed to be easy. Making difficult choices for the sake of yourself is what we call life…ok?”
She understands and nods.
The moral of this inspirational short story is that no matter how matter hardships come your way, breathe, smile, and don’t let yourself go at the heat of the moment. No matter how angry you behave, it is never a solution to a problem. So be the best you can and try to solve the problem without creating any more.
Someone has said very wise words, “Life begins out of your comfort zone.”
Therefore, never expect life to be easy; it is not supposed to be so.
3. Beautiful Inside is what MATTERS
There was a small village in eastern India where lived a pot maker, Mohan. He was the only pot maker in the whole village. He had a small family of a wife and a daughter. He has had three pots for his own house from which his family used to drink water daily.
The two pots out of the three were very satisfied to live in a small house, whereas the third pot was a little materialistic and unsatisfied with what he got. The conversation went on.
The third pot said, “Ughh, I am fed up with living in such a small house. I wish a rich man takes me to his beautiful big house.
The first pot said, “But, you know, this is a pretty good place.”
The second pot agreed and said, “Yes, the first pot is right; why do you want to go? Here we are taken care of, and we have a roof over our heads. Why ask for more when you have got enough?“
The third pot said, “You two don’t get how much fun it would be to live in a big house than this small, poorly constructed house.” and the conversation ends.
The very next day, there came a rich man looking for a pot.
He said to Mohan, “I need a pot.”
He replied, “Yes, sir, we have got a lot of them just freshly made.”
The rich man said, “No, I want an old one.”
Mohan said, “But sir, I don’t have any old ones except the ones I use at my house…”
The rich man replied, “Fine, I will have one of them at any cost you want.”
Mohan rushed into the house, brought the three pots, and said, “There you go, sir, you can use one of them.”
He chose the third pot, and the third pot goes with him happily.
After few months, the rich man’s daughter, a little girl, accidentally put a crack on it. So he threw it in the garbage, thinking that it is now of no use to him.
A poor man was wandering around, and when he saw the pot, he took it to his home. The pot asked him, “Why did you take me to your home. I look so ugly with the crack; why not just buy a new one?”
The man said, “I am poor, and I don’t have money to buy a new one. Besides, I can use you, and that’s what matters. Your appearance isn’t important than what’s on the inside.”
And the third pot smiles, wishing the best for his two pot friends. But little did he know they get cracks as well, and the same poor man brings them back.
After that, all the three pots are nicely taken care of by the poor man.
So you see, the moral of this inspirational short story is that the inside is what matters more than what’s on the outside. No matter how beautiful one is outside, it always fades with time, but the heart remains the same.
Such inspirational stories convey how outer beauty means nothing if there is no inner beauty.
A WISE MAN HAS SAID, “BEAUTY IS not in the face, beauty is the light of the heart.”
4. I’m Not Lazy; They Are!
Hundreds of years ago, they lived a wise king, Ramanrao, who was really worried about his kingdom’s laziness. He decided to do something that he felt can stop people from being lazy.
He put a boulder in the middle of the road and waited to see people’s reactions. To hide and not get recognized, he wore a merchant disguise and sat on the bench to look at people’s reactions who walked around it.
First came a farmer with a cart filled with a lot of fruits and vegetables. As he notices the stone, he says, “Ugh, the king is right. Here, people are truly lazy.” and walks off complaining about it and not even considering putting the stone off the road himself.
Then there comes a soldier wearing a clean uniform and holding a sword hanging by his side. He was fantasizing about the rewards he would get from helping someone. As he was thinking about it, the stone came his way, he slipped, and he fell.
Then he picked himself and the sword up and grumbled about the laziness of the people that they couldn’t even pick the stone off the road. Then he started walking off without doing it himself.
People complained about others not removing the stone out of the way but not taking that initiative themselves as the day went by. The hypocrisy and the laziness of the people really disappointed the king.
As the evening was ending and it was all dark, the king was still hoping for someone to move the stone. He stood there waiting for the right person.
In half an hour, there came a young boy, who looked untidy and worn out from working, walked around the boulder.
He thought to himself, “Oh, that stone is so big, and it is in the middle of the road. Someone might fall by this.” and he started to move the boulder. It was so heavy that he couldn’t do it on the first trial, but still, he didn’t lose hope and took out the heavy boulder off the road.
Suddenly, he saw a box filled with gold coins under the big stone, and he said, “Wow, that’s a lot.”
Instantly the king wore off his disguise and said, “It belongs to you. This box, it belongs to you.”
He, with a confused look, said, “But sir, I am really poor. They, these gold coins, can’t be mine.”
The king smiles and replies, “You see, this was an experiment to see how lazy people can be, and I am rewarding you this box of gold coins for pulling the huge boulder off the road.”
The young boy smiles and accepts the gift with grace. From that day forward, no one in the kingdom remained lazy, and the king finally got the kingdom he wanted.
The moral of the story is that we should never be lazy. We cant get the desired result if we remain lazy. A wise person has said, “God helps those who help themselves.”
So if you don’t take the initiative to do something about your life, don’t expect someone to magically just give you success. Nothing happens overnight; success is something that you get with months or years of hard work!
Such inspirational stories show how people start blaming others for something they themselves aren’t doing, showing another level of hypocrisy.
5. Who Is to Blame? One of The Best Motivational Stories
Once there lived an old man, a farmer, in a small village called Tirupuram. He had a friend who lived in a small city nearby and owned a small bakery.
The old man sent butter to the bakery every day. One day, as the shop was pretty much empty, the bakery owner decided to weigh the butter to see if the butter was 1 pound as he had asked for.
To his surprise, it was not. The butter was way less than how much he used to give money. He was really furious about it not being 1 pound, so he decided to take the farmer to court.
The judge asks the farmer, “Do you have any measure to weigh what you give to the baker.”
The farmer replies, “No, your honor. I dont have any proper measure to weigh the butter.”
The judge, confused, asks, “So how do you weigh the butter to give to the baker?”
The farmer replies, “Your honor, I have a primitive scale and…”
The baker interrupts as he gets very angry with his words, “Your honor, do you see how absurd this is. How can he even measure butter with the primitive scale?”
The judge says, “I need you to be quiet right now and let the farmer speak!”
The baker agrees and says, “Yes, your honor.”
The farmer continues and says, “So as I was saying, I have a primitive scale. You see, I have been taking a loaf of bread for a few years now way back from this man that is also one pound, or at least that’s the amount I ask for. I just give him the same weight of butter that he gives me of the loaf of bread. So, I don’t suppose I am at fault. He is the one at fault. He was also supposed to give me 1 pound of the loaf from his shop.”
So, this short inspiring story’s moral is that we should never cheat others because Karma basically has everyone’s address, and it really has a way to come back to you.
So always be good, if you want people to treat you good and do good, if you desire to have good things happen to you.
6. Be Kind
There was a little boy, around 10 years old, walking down the streets after his school. The weather was hot, and the sun was shining as bright as it could.
He suddenly saw an ice cream shop and thought while touching his pants pocket, “Uhh, I really need ice cream right now. Mom can wait. Let’s get some chocolate ice cream. I think I have got enough money.”
He went inside and called the waitress; he said, “Miss, can I have a cone of chocolate ice cream please?”
Waitress hurriedly, “Yes, how many scoops?”
The boy replies, thinking for a minute, “Umm, can I get three.”
Waitress nods and says, “Yeah, sure, that will be 100 Rs.”
The boy pulls his coins and notes out of his pocket. He starts counting. The waitress says angrily out of patience, “Ughh, I need to do my job and go. Can’t you do it any faster?”
The boy gets scared as she screams but tries as soon as possible.
As the shop gets more crowded as the waitress awaits, and she says again, out of patience, “Ok, I can’t wait anymore. Just leave the money on the table and go.”
Then she leaves.
After he leaves after keeping the money on the table, she goes up there to collect the money.
She gets surprised to see that he left 50 Rs extra on the table with a note, ‘Sorry that I let you wait.’
She instantly regrets how badly she treated the boy.
The moral of this story is that we should always be kind to others regardless of what we went through or our current situation. Kindness is free of cost, which can literally make someone’s life, so never think twice about being kind.
These were few short inspirational stories that have an individual crucial moral in themselves. Many of us tend to find shortcuts in life to achieve success, but success is literally about the challenges and difficulties that one faces in life. This is what these inspirational stories are trying to convey.
There is no successful person in the world who hasn’t had any ups and downs in their lives. These inspirational stories are not something that would just change you all of a sudden. It educates you to initiate yourself to change yourself.
Never give up on yourself; dream big, then only you will achieve something in life! Be kind always! A man has said really wise words,
“Success is not an activity, it is a process.”
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Last Updated on by Laveleena Sharma