Dream and transformation
The matchstick that wanted to be a tree
Once there was a new box of matches, decorated for Christmas, placed beside older boxes that already knew very well what usually happened to a match.
By Cassiano M. Zanetti
The texts in this section are summarized and adapted versions of original writings by Cassiano M. Zanetti. Whenever available, you can also access the original publication.
Among the new matches was a particularly cheerful one. When asked what it wanted to become, it said it dreamed of becoming a great tree: green, beautiful and decorated for Christmas, just as its ancestors had once been.
An older match dismissed the dream as naive. In his view, they all shared the same fate: to be struck, burned and discarded. The young match returned to its box convinced that its dream could never come true.
As time passed, the matches were used one by one. Then a child found the decorated box and decided to reuse the burned sticks for a school project.
The sticks were glued onto a sheet of paper in the shape of a Christmas tree. The next morning, the child's mother found the picture and loved the tree made from used matches.
The dream had come true — just not in the way the matches had imagined.
In innovation and in life, we often confuse the path we imagine with the result we want. When the path changes, we may believe the goal has disappeared. That is not always true.
Ideas, products and people can find new meaning after change, mistakes, losses or transformation. What looks like the end of one possibility may simply be the beginning of another way to achieve it.
Dream. Live. Sometimes what seems impossible simply finds a different way to happen.
By Cassiano M. Zanetti