There was once a teacher who gave his pupils some seeds so they could plant, and look after, their very own sunflower. One boy in the class, who loved sunflower seeds, was so excited that he planted the seed and looked after it with great care for many days.

When the first shoot finally appeared, the boy, filled with impatience, went to see his teacher.

-"Can I uproot it yet?"

he asked, anxiously. The teacher answered that he would still have to tend the plant for quite some time before he would be able to collect many seeds from just one sunflower. The boy was disappointed, but he kept on looking after his sunflower.

However, he grew increasingly impatient, and did little else but pester his teacher about wanting to take out the plant. Despite the teacher asking him to be patient, as soon as the boy saw the sunflower's first seeds, he cut the plant so he could eat them. But the plant was still green, the seeds were not ripe, and of course they couldn't be eaten.

The boy was devastated: He had put so much effort into caring for the sunflower, but in the end he had squandered it all for a simple lack of patience. And he was even angrier when he saw how enormous his classmates' sunflowers grew. Ultimately, he resolved not to be so impatient in the future, and to listen to his teacher. Fortunately, he wasn't completely out of luck, and his friends were good enough to share their delicious sunflower seeds with him.