Success of a farmer
There was a farmer who grew superior quality, award-winning corn in his farm. Each year, he entered his corn in the state fair where it won honors and prizes.
One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew his corn. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbours.
“How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbours when they are entering corn in the competition with yours each year?” The reporter asked.
“Why bother ?” The farmer replied, “Didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen grains from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbours grow inferior, sub-standard and poor quality corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I have to grow good corn, I must help my neighbours to grow good corn too.”
The farmer gave a superb insight into the connectedness of life. His corn cannot improve unless his neighbours’ corn also improves. So, it is similar in the other dimensions and areas of life!
Those who choose to be in harmony must help their neighbours, colleagues, friends and family to be at peace. Those who choose to live well must help others live well too. The value of a life is measured by the lives it touches.
Monkey Trader
As the Indian stock markets defy all known laws of physics and psychology,
“Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for Rs 100.
“The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them.
“The man bought thousands at Rs 100 and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He further announced that he would now buy at Rs 200. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.
“Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer rate increased to Rs 250 and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it!
“The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at Rs 1,000! However, since he had to go to the City on some business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him.
“In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers. Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at Rs 750 and when the man returns from the City, you can sell it to him for Rs 1,000.
“The villagers squeezed up with all their savings and bought all the monkeys. Then they never saw the man nor his assistant, only monkeys everywhere!
