An Inspirational
Story
Wonder if any of
you ever had the feeling that life is bad, real bad…and you wish you were in
another situation. Do you find that life seems to make things difficult for
you, work sucks, life sucks, and everything seems to go wrong….
It was not until
yesterday that I totally changed my views about life; after a conversation with
one of my friends.
He told me
despite taking 2 jobs, and bringing back barely above 1K per month, he is happy
as he is. I wonder how he can be as happy as he is now, considering that he has
to skimp his life with the low pay to support a pair of old-age parents,
in-laws, 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 was touring India after a major setback. He
said that right in front of his very eyes, he saw an Indian mother chopped off
her child’s right hand with a chopper. The helplessness in the mother’s eyes,
the scream of the pain from the innocent 4 years old child haunted him until
today. You may ask why did the mother do so, has the child been naughty, was
the child’s hand 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 can go out to the streets to beg. I
cannot accept how this could happen, but it really did, just in another part of
the world which I don’t see.
Taken aback by
the scene, he dropped a small piece of bread he was eating half-way. And almost
instantly, flock of 5 or 6 children swamp towards this small piece of bread
which was then covered with sand, robbing of 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 is
dumbfounded, but willing sold everything. He spent less than $100 to obtain
about 400 loaves of bread (this is less than $0.25/per loaf) and spend 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 life he wondered how people can give up
their dignity for a loaf of bread which cost less than $0.25. He began to ask
himself how fortunate he is as a Singaporean. How fortunate he to be able to
have a complete body, have a job, have a family, have the chance to complain
what food is nice what isn’t, have the chance to be clothed, have the many
things that these people in front of him are deprived of…..
Now I begin to
think and feel it, too. Was my life really that bad?
Perhaps….no,… it
should not be bad at all….
What about you?
Maybe the next time you think you are, think about the child who lost one hand
to beg on the streets.
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