What Can be Learned from Life cycle of a Butterfly?

Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.

-An English Proverb

If you are aware of the life cycle of a butterfly 🦋 then you must understand the impact of the proverb. Anyway, let me explain to you. Butterflies have a very interesting life cycle.

Life Cycle of a Butterfly:

Egg is the first step of the life cycle of a butterfly that hatches into a larvae known as a caterpillar. Caterpillar is super hungry and keeps feeding on various things to just grow and become fat. Once it’s all grown up, it attaches to a leaf and curls up to form a cocoon into which the pupa resides. After some time the cocoon opens up and a beautiful butterfly comes out of the cocoon.

We see that every step starting from the egg to the butterfly, is very important in the life cycle of the butterfly. None of the steps can be missed and play an important role in the formation of the butterfly.

If you look with curiosity, you will find that the larval stage of the butterfly when it was a caterpillar was the adverse phase of its life when it had to continuously look for food and keep eating and growing. In the pupal stage, inside the cocoon, the pupa rests. These are the most relaxing days in the life of a butterfly. In this stage only the transformation of a pupa into a butterfly takes place. Such changes in biology are called metamorphosis.

There is a very nice video on the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly. It is called “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle. I came across this animated film when my 5-year-old son got this video as a lesson to be done during remote learning. The link to the video is here. If you have children at home, please show them this video. They will never forget the life cycle of a butterfly.

What does the Proverb tell Us?

This proverb tries to tell us that you never know when the good days will come. You might think that this is the end of your life and then it completely turns around to be the best days of your life.

1. Never lose hope.

You never know when your prayers are accepted. You never know when the ugly days are going to convert into beautiful days. Just like the creepy caterpillar converted into a gorgeous butterfly that can fly. A caterpillar never knows that it will convert into a butterfly when the right time comes. It never knew that it would have wings and would be able to fly high up in the sky. Similarly, we aren’t aware of the future. We don’t know what is going to happen to us in the future. Thus we should just use our present to make a beautiful tomorrow.

2. Perseverance is important.

When we have bad days, we often end up losing hope and we start complaining and blaming. On the other hand, on bad days when things aren’t in our favor, we shouldn’t give up. We should still have the hope that everything will turn for good. We should use that time to help us grow strong.

3. Change is for Good.

We should always remember that change is the only constant in nature. In the case of the conversion of a caterpillar to a butterfly, the change happened for the betterment of the caterpillar. We should also have trust in the change.

4. Leave the comfort zone.

Hadn’t a pupa come out of its comfortable cocoon it would have never turned into a butterfly. Who doesn’t want to live and work in their comfort zone? Think, about what happens when we leave our comfort zone. Transformation occurs. Once we leave our comfort zone and try to do something else with full confidence and hard work, transformation occurs within us. The sleepy and relaxing pupa within us metamorphoses into a beautiful butterfly.