inspiring stories

The 10 Most Inspirational Short Stories I’ve Heard

We have all heard short inspirational stories while growing up, but we were too small to comprehend the profound meaning behind the stories.

They are short and simple but have profound meaning embedded with which we can look forward to learning a lot.

Read through this article for some inspiration and motivation to go through your tough day.

The 10 Most Inspirational Short Stories

These are the top 10 inspirational short stories I have come across.

10. Angry Nail

This story is about a boy who was a furious person despite being young, and he used to get mad at every little thing.

The boy could not control his anger and usually lash out at his friends and hurt them.

He was sent home from school often due to his bad behavior.

Looking at the problem, the boy’s father asked the boy to buy some nails.

After the boy was done buying nails, the father handed him a hammer and told the boy to hammer a nail on the fence every time he gets mad.

The boy agreed. Thereafter, every time he got mad at something or somebody, he hammered a nail on the fence.

Days and weeks passed by, and he gradually got annoyed with hammering the nail every time he was mad.

So to avoid having to hammer the nail, he started to control his anger.

Eventually, the number of nails decreased, and after a few months, he was totally able to control his temper.

After watching the improvement, the father took out the nails, called the boy, and told him to look at the fence.

Nail on the fence
Nail on the fence

Then the father looked at the boy and said that he had done well, but the thing is that the holes that he had already engraved in the fence were irreparable.

The father said, When you get angry at other people, it leaves a scar just like the holes you see in front of you.

It doesn’t matter if you say I’m sorry one hundred times. The injury is still there.

The moral of this story is we should always control our temper.

9. The Ultimate Gift

This story starts with a little boy who was around ten years old. The boy had fallen sick and needed an emergency blood transfusion, or else he would die.

All family members tested their blood types. Unfortunately, no one matched his type except his little sister, three years younger than him.

With the sight of hope, the doctors proceeded to ask the little girl if she was willing to give her blood to her brother so he could survive.

At first, the little girl was scared, so she hesitated. But after few minutes, she agreed. The blood transfusion started, and both she and her older brother were laid on the bed.

As the blood transfusion was happening, the little girl looked at her bother and smiled and asked the doctor, “When will I start dying?”.

Sadly, the little girl had assumed that she was passing her life to her older brother. After hearing that, the doctors and the parents of the kids were shocked and smiled.

The doctor explained to the little girl that nothing would happen to her or her brother. And after hearing that, the little girl had a glow on her face and smiled wide.

After reading this story, we can understand that sometimes courage is essential, and the act of selflessness can help everyone around us.

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8. Seeking Happiness

This story begins in a seminar hall.

Around 200 people were attending a seminar on mental and physical health.

Everyone was excited to learn something that will help them get along with their lives.

The seminar started with the host entering the room, and as soon as he entered. He announced that they would be participating in an activity.

For the activity, each person in the room got a balloon.

The host told the attendees to write their names on the balloon and pass it over to the volunteers.

Everyone followed it and after everyone was finished. The balloons were moved to another room.

The attendees were then given two minutes to go to the room and find the balloon with their name written on it.

Everyone rushed and got to the other room, it was chaos, and no one could find the balloon because of the mess.

The host calmed the situation and told everyone to pick one balloon each. Upon picking the balloon, he asked them to pass the balloon to the person whose name was written.

In this way, everyone had the balloon with their names in less than 2 minutes.

The host looked at the crowd and said, This is what it’s like when people are frantically searching for their own happiness in life.

We discard the feeling of other people looking for our happiness. In the process of achieving happiness, we leave a big mess behind.

The moral of the story is that we should not discard other people’s feelings just because we are looking for our happiness.

7. Cutting Corners

This story is about a carpenter who had worked all his life and wanted to retire to spend time with his family.

The carpenter told his boss that he was going to retire. This news saddened the boss, but he agreed.

Before retiring, the boss asked the carpenter if he could make one last house as a favor.

Despite the loss of his passion, the carpenter agreed. He started to work on the house. He was thinking about retiring so, and he did not plan to work properly on this house.

The carpenter cut corners wherever or by whichever means he could and put the least effort to finish it quickly.

He finished building the house rather quickly.

The boss then handed him the key and told him that this was his gift for all those years of hard work.

The carpenter was shocked and thought he could have worked hard if he knew it was for him.

From this story, we can learn that we should always put our best efforts into whatever we are doing and avoid cutting corners.

6. Frog in the pot

Once a woman was cooking dinner for her family. She was preparing to make delicious pasta for her family.

She boiled the water and put the pasta in for boiling. The lady went out of the kitchen as the water was heating.

During this time, a frog had managed to enter the kitchen, and he was leaping around, but unfortunately, he fell into the pot where the pasta was cooking.

At first, the frog felt comfortable despite being in a dire situation and didn’t try to leap out of the pot while he had the chance to.

The water was not hot yet; it was just lukewarm, so the frog sustained its temperature.

Gradually time passed by, and the water reached the boiling point, and that was when the frog started feeling uncomfortable.

But it was too late for him, the water was already boiling, and he did not have a way to get out of the pot.

The moral of this story is despite being in dire situations, many of us take it easy and wait for the last moment, and it bites us back.

We should be prepared for any kind of situation. Moreover, we should not lay back and only work hard in the last moments.

5. Breathing with no Air

A kid once asked a shrewd older adult what the secret of success is?

The wise man told the kid to visit him in the morning by the riverside to know the secret to his success.

The kid agreed, and the day passed, and the next day, the kid went by the riverside to meet the man.

After meeting, they both together went inside the river until the point where the water was up to their mouth.

The older man suddenly grabbed the kid’s neck and dipped him underwater, and kept pushing him down.

The kid struggled and tried to get his head out of the water, but he was powerless in front of the older man.

He kept struggling for air, and after few seconds, the wise man let the boy’s head out.

After he was out of the water, the boy was infuriated at the older man, but the older man calmed him down and asked what he was struggling for.

The boy angrily replied, “Air.”

With that answer, the older man smiled and said, There you have the secret to success. When you want to gain success as much as you wanted air when you were underwater, you will obtain it. That’s the only secret.

If we are determined and desire to achieve something and work hard for it, we will always be successful. That is something we can learn from the story.

4. The Ultimate Test

One night, four students went out to party and have fun despite having their tests the next day.

They did not study at all and partied all night and missed their tests the next morning.

In the morning, the boys came up with a plan to lie to their professor and then went back to the campus.

All of them went to the professor’s office and said they could not attend the test due to a flat tire.

They told their professor that they had gone out, but they had a flat tire and could not make it on time for the test while returning.

The professor was able to look right through their lies but did not say anything. He told his students that they could take the retest the next day.

They were all placed in different rooms on exam day.

They were all shocked. There were only two questions.

What is your name? and Which tire was flat?

The moral of this story is we should always take responsibility for our actions.

3. The Boulder and The Gold

This story is probably the most famous one on this. We have probably read it in our school days.

The story begins at night with a king placing a big boulder in the middle of the road.

The next morning came, and the king hid near the boulder and observed what the people would do when they notice the boulder.

Many people came and passed by.

From rich wealthy nobles to merchants, everyone passed around the boulder and complained that the king has not been maintaining the road well, but no one bothered to move it.

After hours passed by, a lowly peasant was passing by and saw the boulder.

He was carrying groceries and food for his family, and his hand was full, but he put it on the side of the road and tried to move the boulder.

It was hard, but he persisted and moved it out of the way finally.

He was about to walk away with his food after he was done. Right when he was leaving, he saw a bag underneath the boulder and picked it up.

He opened the bag and saw gold coins inside it, and the king came out of hiding and praised the peasant for his efforts and told him that it was his reward for his hard work and efforts.

The moral of this story is we should always face our obstacles head-on. There will always be a reward waiting for us at the end of hard times.

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2. A Wise Man’s Joke

Once a wise man was among a group of people who complained about the same problem repeatedly.

They did not offer any help to solve the problems, but they loved complaining about the same things.

To teach the group some life lessons, the wise man came up with a plan. Everyone gathered again, and the complaining started once again.

The wise man made a joke, and everyone busted out in laughter.

He then repeated the joke, but this time, only a few people chuckled. But when he repeated the joke thrice, people seemed annoyed, and no one laughed.

Looking at the reactions, the wise man smiled and said, “you won’t laugh at the same joke more than once. So what are you getting from complaining about the same problem?”

The moral of the story is, instead of complaining about the same stuff time and time again, we should work to solve the problem.

1. The Elephant Rope

Once a man walked through an elephant camp and noticed that the elephants were only tied with a small string of rope on their legs instead of being kept in a cage or tied with strong chains.

With surprise, he approached the trainer. Then he asked him why were they tying the elephants only with a small string of rope?

He asked, won’t they be able to break through if they tried?

Elephant rope
Elephant rope

The trainer looked at the man and replied that the elephants were tied with that rope since they were kids. When they were kids, the rope was enough to hold them.

As they grew up, they assumed that the rope was enough to hold them. Thus they don’t even try to break free because of their assumptions.

The moral of this story is we should always put efforts to break free of what has been holding us back instead of living with it for the rest of our lives.

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