Monday, August 28, 2006
Contentment is the realization of how much you already have...
This is a touching and inspiring story I once heard.. Read on if you wanna know how to feel happy each day of your life... Hee..
Have you ever, at any one time, had the feeling that life is bad, real bad, and you wish you were in another situation? You find life make things difficult for you, work sucks, life sucks, everything seems to go wrong... Read the following story... it may change your views about life.
After a conversation with one of my friends, he told me despite taking 2 jobs, he brings back barely above 1K per month, he is happy as he is. I wonder how he can be as happy as he is considering he has to skimp his life with the low pay to support a pair of old parents, in-laws, a wife, 2 daughters and the many bills of a household.
He explained that it was through one incident that he saw in India... that happened a few years ago when he was really feeling low and touring India after a major setback. He said that right in front of his very eyes he saw an Indian mother chop off her child's right hand with a chopper. The helplessness in the mother's eyes, the scream of pain from the innocent 4-year-old child haunted him until today.
You may ask why did the mother do so; had the child been naughty, had the child's hand been infected?? No, it was done for two simple words : - - - TO BEG! The desperate mother deliberately caused the child to be handicapped so that the child could go out to the streets to beg. Taken aback by the scene, he dropped a piece of bread he was eating half-way. And almost instantly, a flock of 5 or 6 children swamped towards this small piece of bread which was covered withsand, robbing bits from one another. The natural reaction of hunger.
Stricken by the happenings, he instructed his guide to drive him to the nearest bakery. He arrived at two bakeries and bought every single loaf of bread he found in the bakeries. The owner was dumbfounded but willingly sold everything. He spent less than $100 to obtain about 400 loaves of bread (this is less than $0.25 per loaf) and spent another $100 to get daily necessities. Off he went in the truck full of bread into the streets. As he distributed the bread and necessities to the children (mostly handicapped) and a few adults, he received cheers and bows from these unfortunate.
For the first time in his life he wondered how people can give up their dignity for a loaf of bread which cost less than $0.25. He began to tell himself how fortunate he is. How fortunate he is to be able to have a complete body, have a job, have a family, have the chance to complain what food is nice and what isn't nice, have the chance to be clothed, have the many things that these people in front of him are deprived of...
Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, it is the realization of how much you already have. Don't you agree? Now if you have a moment to spare, think about your life. Think about the chances you've been given, the precious gifts you've been endowed with, the people around you who love you with all they've got. Why do you still always hate your life and wish for it to be better? Why?
I find it puzzling that people are never contented. Perhaps it's just greed that makes us want something better than what we already have, rather than cherishing the present. Well, I'm definitely contented with my life. My parents, my friends, myself, my past, my present, my future.
I dun wanna live my life with regrets.. & I wanna die smiling, knowing that I have led a contented and fulfilling life.. =)
Have you ever, at any one time, had the feeling that life is bad, real bad, and you wish you were in another situation? You find life make things difficult for you, work sucks, life sucks, everything seems to go wrong... Read the following story... it may change your views about life.
After a conversation with one of my friends, he told me despite taking 2 jobs, he brings back barely above 1K per month, he is happy as he is. I wonder how he can be as happy as he is considering he has to skimp his life with the low pay to support a pair of old parents, in-laws, a wife, 2 daughters and the many bills of a household.
He explained that it was through one incident that he saw in India... that happened a few years ago when he was really feeling low and touring India after a major setback. He said that right in front of his very eyes he saw an Indian mother chop off her child's right hand with a chopper. The helplessness in the mother's eyes, the scream of pain from the innocent 4-year-old child haunted him until today.
You may ask why did the mother do so; had the child been naughty, had the child's hand been infected?? No, it was done for two simple words : - - - TO BEG! The desperate mother deliberately caused the child to be handicapped so that the child could go out to the streets to beg. Taken aback by the scene, he dropped a piece of bread he was eating half-way. And almost instantly, a flock of 5 or 6 children swamped towards this small piece of bread which was covered withsand, robbing bits from one another. The natural reaction of hunger.
Stricken by the happenings, he instructed his guide to drive him to the nearest bakery. He arrived at two bakeries and bought every single loaf of bread he found in the bakeries. The owner was dumbfounded but willingly sold everything. He spent less than $100 to obtain about 400 loaves of bread (this is less than $0.25 per loaf) and spent another $100 to get daily necessities. Off he went in the truck full of bread into the streets. As he distributed the bread and necessities to the children (mostly handicapped) and a few adults, he received cheers and bows from these unfortunate.
For the first time in his life he wondered how people can give up their dignity for a loaf of bread which cost less than $0.25. He began to tell himself how fortunate he is. How fortunate he is to be able to have a complete body, have a job, have a family, have the chance to complain what food is nice and what isn't nice, have the chance to be clothed, have the many things that these people in front of him are deprived of...
Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, it is the realization of how much you already have. Don't you agree? Now if you have a moment to spare, think about your life. Think about the chances you've been given, the precious gifts you've been endowed with, the people around you who love you with all they've got. Why do you still always hate your life and wish for it to be better? Why?
I find it puzzling that people are never contented. Perhaps it's just greed that makes us want something better than what we already have, rather than cherishing the present. Well, I'm definitely contented with my life. My parents, my friends, myself, my past, my present, my future.
I dun wanna live my life with regrets.. & I wanna die smiling, knowing that I have led a contented and fulfilling life.. =)
~Summer~ 3:08 PM