There’s once a riddle I came across that began like this: A king presents a challenge to his servants, asking them to create a ring for him that when he looks at it when he is happy, it will make him sad, and when he looks at it when he is sad, it will make him happy. After some time, the servants return and give the king his new ring. As the king looks down at the ring, he sees…
Now, everybody hates cliffhangers, but let me indulge in one for the time being. This riddle has stuck with me ever since I first read it nearly seven months ago. Personally, I’ve always loved riddles, and the greatest joy of riddles is in figuring out the answer myself rather than having to find out the answer. Yet, try as I might, I could not figure out what the servants would bring back. What reasonable answer was there to this riddle? As I read on, I received my answer: … a ring inscribed with the phrase, “This too shall pass.”
Amazing. That’s the answer. Such a trite phrase is the answer. As simple as it seems, however, it really does accomplish the challenge the king gave. I can surely attest to how this phrase perfectly sums up my change in emotions. The sadness in the loss of my friend to cancer earlier this year is replaced with the, maybe not happiness, but hope in knowing that "this too shall pass;" it is not an eternal state of sadness. The happiness of my senior year of high school was always dampened by the knowledge that I would soon have to leave the people I had grown so close to and the familiarity I had grown so used to — this happiness, too, shall pass.
At first glance, this riddle was simultaneously encouraging and depressing for me. I found myself in this strange limbo-state of not wanting to be too happy or too sad, since there was this constant reminder that it was only temporary. Yet, I offer another way of looking at the importance of this riddle: even though many things in life are so fleeting, there are still a few irreplaceable pillars in life, pillars which are truly important. The happiness I felt senior year resulted from friendships with students and teachers, relationships that are not contained only to the time frame of high school. The sadness I experienced in the death of a friend does not replace the memories and experiences that I shared with him, times that will never be forgotten, times that have shaped who I am now.
The emotions may pass, but the root of those emotions, the fountain from which they spring from, that will not pass away or change. There are surely those aspects of life that will pass, but let us not lose sight of the aspects of life that are unfading.
