A ten-year old boy regularly went for a walk on a nearby hillock with his father. One day he told his father: "Let us run to the top. Whoever will touch the green flag on the top first will be the winner." His father agreed to it.

Since the distance was long, both started running slowly. After running for some distance, the father stopped.

"What has happened Papa? Are you tired? Do you accept defeat?" said the boy with a smile.

"No, a small stone has gotten into my shoes; I have just stopped to take it out," replied the father.

"Papa, a few stones have gotten into my shoes as well. If I stop to take them out, I will lose the race," saying this, he began running faster.

When the father started running again after taking out the stone, the boy had gone far ahead. Running for some distance more, the boy felt pain in the foot. So his speed became slower and his father gradually began coming closer to him. After some time, the father overtook him.

Now the pain had increased so much that the boy couldn't run more. He stopped and called out: "Papa, I can't run more; my foot is paining badly."

The father ran back quickly after hearing his son's painful wail. He took off his shoes and saw that the foot was bleeding. The father immediately took him home and dressed up the injured foot.

After making him comfortable, the father told lovingly: "Dear son, problems are always waiting to appear in our life. But we shouldn't ignore to tackle them because we don't have time. When we don't tackle the problems in time, they become larger and hurt us more than they would do normally.

"If you had stopped for a little while to take out the stones, you wouldn't have injured your foot so much. Now it will take 5 to 7 days to heal your injury. Similarly, we mustn't let the problems become bigger because they would need more time and efforts for getting solved."