‘A stitch in time saves nine’ is a popular proverb which has much relevance today both in our private as well as public life.
Persons who are lavish,snobbish, and profligate may find the proverb somewhat superfluous and even with a overbearing attitude and look at it with askance.But people who have some social purpose and obligation, may find it much relevant in the modern day context and may even get astonished with its utility.
The simple meaning conveyed by the proverb is that one should take a timely action on any eventuality that will prevent cyclic reactions and wastages.For example we get a message about a bomb scare or threat.It may even be a hoax.But it is our duty to take steps immediately to find out the truth behind it and if the threat is true, it is our duty to solve the threat.
Similarly, one of our sons or daughters, who is otherwise brilliant may have scored low marks in a subject or have failed in a subject. It is our immediate duty to take steps to find out the actual difficulty of the child, either by meeting the teacher or simply enquiring the child with all our ernestness and try to solve his or her problems as early as possible. Suppose we simply ignore or fail to notice and solve the problem, the child may lose interest in the concerned subject, continue to score low marks repeatedly or fail repeatedly and in the result may fail in his or her school final that may become a turning point in his or her life.But some people may even argue why should we focus or concentrate much on trivial issues which have no any use or purpose.But it is not so.We have also come across the stories, for want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, for want of a horse,(in the end) the battle was lost.Therefore, we should simply be serious even on a trivial issue and try to plug the loopeholes, if any, as early as possible.
Again another relevant question that is frequently asked is what is the social purpose that lie before us.For example. the two wheeler that we have, develop some small snag and we hear some unusual sound while running the two wheeler, but we don’t know the actual cause for the sound.If we choose to attend it immediately, we may avert a major engine failure and of course even an accident that may endanger our life.Above all we also stand gain that by attending a small fault in the engine,we actually spend very little and in other words, we incur only a very small expenditure.Therefore, by incurring a small expenditure we save considerably, that may save us in the long run in case of our financial difficulty.And when we take one more forward step, what we save by our timely action, we may contribute to others who are actually in need of it.
Therefore, the proverb ‘a stitch in time saves nine’ not only helps us but it also induces us to help others.It is a proverb which has a message for all, for all ages.
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