Steps of Wisdom

Among the stunning terraces of Pamukkale, Turkey, where waters from a rich mineral content flow over snow-white limestone, lived Deniz, a man. Deniz was a retired watchmaker, and everyone in his village knew him to be utterly consumed by precision—precision not only in clocks, but in life as well. 

Deniz measured everything: the rainfall in centimeters, his wife’s words in syllables, and even his neighbor’s greetings in seconds. But ever since his son left for Istanbul, refusing to take over the family watch shop, Deniz had become more withdrawn, bitter, and silently aching for control.

One day, while walking across the warm terraces, Deniz met an old traveler sitting by a natural spring, meditating with closed eyes. Curious, he asked, “What are you doing in this chaos? You cannot stop the wind, the water, or the people.”

The traveler smiled and pointed to the flowing water. “Does the spring try to stop flowing when it meets a rock? No. It flows around it. It doesn’t control the rock—it controls its own path.”

That night, Deniz went home and opened his shop—not to fix watches, but to give them away. “Let time run,” he whispered. He began writing letters to his son—not demanding he return, but telling him stories of the stars, the soil, and the surrender of the springs.

Years later, Deniz’s shop became a reading room filled with ticking clocks, none in sync. “Life doesn’t need to be wound tight,” he’d say to young visitors. “It needs to be lived without fear of breaking.”

Moral:

Trying to control what lies beyond us only breeds suffering. Peace begins with mastering the self.

Inspiration:

“Suffering arises from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power.” – Epictetus