1. Make hay while the sun shines

Hay making, that is the process of cutting and drying grass, must be done while the sun shines. Rain would spoil everything and the farmer knows it well. In other words, we should make the best use of opportunities and favourable conditions while they last.

When life presents opportunities, we must seize them and not let them go. Everyone in their lifetime gets a chance to move ahead in life. If we miss that opportunity, it may never come our way again. We will live all our life to regret the missed chance. In short, we should seize the chance while it exists. We must always be alert to notice the opportune moment. Grab it and move further in life. To put it in another way : “We must strike while the iron is hot”.

3. Prevention is better than cure

The proverb stresses the need for foresight and precaution in dealing with any possible eventuality in life. We often ignore the signs of trouble and when the trouble finally, occurs, we regret our neglect.

We must make it a practice to guard ourselves against diseases by taking adequate preventive measures. This will save us the trouble of undergoing costly treatments. Strangely, certain epidemics offer no cure or vaccine for a long time, then prevention becomes the only option before us. Wearing of masks, keeping social distance and maintaining hand-hygiene are the only ways to save us from such a threatening situation.

Metaphorically, the idea can be extended to fields other than disease and medicine. Proper maintenance of machines, roads and bridges can prevent their deterioration and thus forestall disaster. At the political and economical level too, many problems that we face today would not have existed had the authorities acted promptly, firmly and boldly at the very start.