Once upon a time, a man and his wife had the good fortune to have a goose which laid a golden egg every day. Lucky though they were, they soon began to think they were not getting rich fast enough.
They imagined that if the bird must be able to lay golden eggs, its insides must be made of gold. And they thought that if they could get all that precious metal at once, they would get mighty rich very soon. So the man and his wife decided to kill the bird.
However, upon cutting the goose open, they were shocked to find that its innards were like that of any other goose!
MORAL: THINK BEFORE YOU ACT
Change Yourself and not The World
Long ago, people happily lived under the rule of a king. The people of the kingdom were very happy as they had a very prosperous life with abundance of wealth and no misfortunes.
The king decided to go on a travel to visit places of historical importance and pilgrim centres at distant places. He decided to travel by foot to interact with his people and accompany them. People of distant places were so happy to have a conversation with their king and they were proud that their king was so kind with a good heart!
After several weeks, he returned to the palace. He was quite happy that he visited many pilgrim centres and could see his fellow people leading a propitious life. However, he had regret.
He had intolerable pain in his feet as it was his first trip by foot to longer distance. He complained to his ministers that the roads weren’t comfortable and were very stony. He could not tolerate the pain as he walked all the way through the rough path.
He said he was very much worried about the people who used to walk along those roads as it would be painful for them too!
He made an order to cover the road of the whole country with leather so that people might feel comfortable, immediately.
The king thought that he had to change this for the betterment and happiness of the people.
His ministers were stunned to hear his order as it would destroy the life of thousands of cows to get the sufficient quantity of leather and it would cost a huge amount of money also.
A wise man from the ministry came to the king and said that he had another idea.
The king asked - what was his alternative idea. The minister told, ‘Why do you want to kill the holy animal cow to cover the road with leather? Rather, you can just have a piece of leather cut in appropriate shape to cover your feet?’
The king was very much surprised by his suggestion and applauded the minister. He ordered for a pair of leather shoes for him and requested the countrymen to wear shoes.
Moral: "Many of us criticize the world for many things. We curse and blame the things in our surroundings and never understand that we need a change in us. Changes are inevitable in the world, and the changes should be from us. We cannot or should not force others to make a change."
Chapter Three
Sam was a greedy and a selfish man. He always desired to have lots and lots of wealth and never hesitated to cheat others to earn money. Also, he never wished to share anything with the others. He was so selfish that he would like to own everything for himself.
The selfish man used to calculate each and every small aspect. He paid a very little amount of wages to his servants. Where ever he went, he calculated a lot to save money by deceiving others. He also told a lot of lies to protect his wealth. Simply, Sam was the antonym for the word; HONESTY.
However, he was taught a nice lesson by his own act.
One day, he missed a small bag, which contained 50 gold coins. He was searching for the bag of gold coins day and night. He sent his workers in search of the bag, but none could find it. He told his friends and neighbours that he had lost a bag of gold coins and requested them to inform if they found it. Sam was so sad that he had lost so many gold coins.
After a couple of days, a ten year old girl, who was located near Sam’s house, told her father that she had found a small bag and it had 50 gold coins. Her father worked in Sam’s land. He told his daughter that it was his chief’s money and he had lost it before two days and added he would return the bag to his master.
They weren’t very rich and the father could retain the gold coins with themselves and hide the fact of finding the bag. He was so honest that he should return the valuable coins to his master, who really owed it.
He gave it back to his master Sam and asked him to check whether the bag had 50 gold coins. Sam who was literally happy to get the coins, decided to play a trick. He shouted at his worker, ‘There were 75 gold coins in this bag and you gave me only 50! Where are the other coins? You have stolen them!’
The worker was shocked to hear this and he pleaded to his master that he gave whatever his daughter had found.
Selfish and greedy Sam did not accept it and they decided to take the issue to court to get the right judgment.
The judge heard both the sides. He examined the daughter and the worker about the number of coins they had found in the bag and they assured it was only 50!
He cross-examined Sam and Sam replied, ‘Yes lord, I had 75 gold coins in my bag and now they gave me only 50! They have stolen my 25 coins!’
Judge asked, ‘Are you sure you had 75 coins?’ and Sam nodded his head.
Then the judge made his judgment, ‘Since Sam lost a bag of 75 gold coins, the bag found by the girl which had only 50 coins doesn’t belong to Sam and it was lost by somebody else. In addition, if anyone found a bag of 75 gold coins, I would declare it belongs to Sam. Also, there were no claims against the loss of 50 coins and I order the girl and his father to take those 50 coins as a token of appreciation for their honesty!’
Moral: "Honesty is rewarded and greediness is punished!"
Money Vs Family
Rama’s family is very big. Rama is a hard worker and he is the sole bread winner of the family. He has three kids, two sons and a daughter. He lives along with father and mother. Rama used to work too hard to feed his family.
He works for more than 16 hours a day. The kids cannot see him as he will leave home early in the morning before they wake-up and reach home around midnight when kids would sleep every day. The entire family eagerly wait to spend quality time with him and the kids miss him so much.
The children were too curious about Sundays as his father would spend the entire day with them. Unfortunately, to meet the increasing household expenses and educational expenses, Rama took a weekend job to work even on Sundays. The kids were very shattered and even Rama’s wife and parents too!
The typical routine continued for several weeks and year passed. All the hard work of Rama earned a lot of benefits and he was offered promotion with attractive increment.
The family moved to a new house, got better clothes and ate healthy foods. However, as usual, Rama continues to earn more and more money. One day his wife asked him ‘why are you running for money? We can be happy with what we have now.’
Rama replied, ‘I want to give the best available in the world to all of you and want you to stay happy always.’
Two years passed and Rama hardly spent time with his family. The children yearned to have their father at home. Meanwhile, the sincere efforts of Rama reaped him a fortune. He was offered partnership and share in profits. He continued to earn more and more wealth.
Now, Rama’s family is one of the richest families in the city. They have all the facilities and luxuries. Still, Rama’s children strove to meet their father as he was hardly seen at home.
His children turned teens and they are no more kids. Now, Rama earned enough wealth to provide a luxurious life to his next five generations.
Rama’s family went to their beach house to spend their vacation. His daughter asked, ‘Dad will you please spend one day at home and stay with us here?’
Rama replied, ‘Yes darling, tomorrow for sure, I will join you for the lunch and be with you all for next few days. I’m tired of work and need refreshment!’
The entire family became very happy.
Unfortunately, the next day, none in Rama’s family were alive as they were washed out in Tsunami!
Rama was too busy even to hear the news about Tsunami. When he tried to reach his beach house, he saw sea and water everywhere and screamed for his family, He could not even find the dead bodies of his family.
He can never have them again, cannot even see them and even by paying millions he cannot get them back to life!
He remembered his wife’s words, ‘Why are you running for money? We can be happy with what we have now.’
Moral: "Money can’t buy everything!"
The Hidden Treasure
This is a short story about how hard work rewards?
There was an old man living in his village. He had four sons and they were very lazy. The old man fell sick and was counting his last days in bed. He worried a lot about his sons’ future as the young men hesitated a lot to work. The sons believed that luck would favour them.
The old man’s health deteriorated every day and decided to talk to his sons about their future. However, his sons did not listen to him. The Old man played a trick to let their sons realize the importance of work.
One day, the old man called all his sons and let them sit near him in his bed. He said he had a treasure box with gold coins and expensive gems for them and wanted to share the treasure equally and lead a happy, prosperous life. The young men were very happy and asked where his father placed the treasure. The old man replied them ‘I cannot exactly remember the place where I had hidden the treasure from the others. However, the treasure box is buried in our land. I’m really not sure about the place where I had hidden the treasure box.’
Even though the lazy young sons were happy, they were sad that the old man forgot the place where the treasure was hidden. After a few days, the old man died. The sons decided to dig the land to find the treasure box.
They worked very hard and dug their land. They could not find any treasure box in the land. They decided to dig a spot in their land that remained a bit different from the rest of the area. The sons believed that the treasure was buried in that spot. They dug the specific spot so deeply, got nothing but water.
A passerby who noticed the dug land and water flowing from a spot talked to the sons about agriculture. They sowed vegetable seeds and planted greens and flower plants in their land. Since the land became very fertile with abundant water, within a few weeks the land became a fertile garden with nutritious vegetables and greens. The young sons sold the vegetables at a good price and earned a good amount of money.
Then they realized that it was the hard work that was mentioned as ‘Treasure Box’ by their father. They defeated their laziness, worked hard, earned more money and lived happily.
Moral: Hard Work Always Pay
Foolish Monkeys
Before several centuries, there was a very large, dense and dark forest. A group of monkeys arrived at the forest. It was winter season, and the monkeys struggled hard to survive the freezing cold nights. They were hunting for fire to get warm.
One night, they saw a firefly and considered it a dab of fire. All the monkeys in the group shouted ‘Fire, Fire, Fire, Yeah we got fire!’
A couple of monkeys tried to catch the firefly and it escaped. They were sad as they could not catch the fire. They were talking to themselves that they couldn’t live in the cold if they didn’t get the fire.
The next night, again they saw many fireflies. After several attempts, the monkeys caught a few fireflies. They put the fireflies in a hole dug in the land and tried to blow the flies.
They blew the flies very hard without knowing the fact that they were flies!
An owl was watching the activities of the monkeys. The owl reached the monkeys and told them, ‘Hey those are not fire! They are flies. You won’t be able to make fire from it!’
The monkeys laughed at the owl. One monkey replied the owl, ‘Hey old owl you don’t know anything about how to make fire. Don’t disturb us!’
The Owl warned the monkeys again and asked them to stop their foolish act. ‘Monkeys, you cannot make fire from the flies! Please hear my words.’
The monkeys tried to make fire from the flies.
The Owl told them again to stop their foolish act. ‘You are struggling so much, go take your shelter in a nearby cave. You can save yourself from the freezing cold! You won’t get fire!’
One monkey shouted at the owl and the owl left the place.
The monkeys were simply doing the foolish activity for several hours and it was almost midnight. They were very tired and realized that the words of the owl were correct and they were trying to blow a fly.
They sheltered themselves at the cave and escaped from the cold.
Moral: We may go wrong many times and should seek and accept the advice / suggestions provided by others.