One day, the King came upon a servant who was singing happily while he worked. This fascinated the King and he asked the servant, "Why are you so happy?" The man replied,"Your Majesty, I am nothing but a servant, but my family and I don't need too much - just a roof over our heads and warm food to fill our tummies."
The King was not satisfied with his reply and sought the advise of his most trusted advisor. The advisor said, "Your majesty, I believe that the servant has not been made part of The 99 Club."
"The 99 Club? And what exactly is that?", the King enquired. The advisor suggested that to know more about the club, he must leave a bag of 99 gold coins at servant's doorsteps.
When the servant found the bag and opened it, he let out a great shout of joy...So many gold coins. However, after counting them he wondered, "What could have happened to the last gold coin? Surely, no one would leave 99 coins!"
He looked everywhere he could, but that final coin was elusive. Finally, exhausted, he decided to work hard to earn that extra coin and complete his collection. Soon, his life changed : he was overworked, horribly grumping, started complaining about trivial matters and he stopped singing while he worked.
When the King saw this, he asked his advisor about his servant's drastic transformation.
The advisor replied, " Your servant has now joined The 99 Club. It is a club for those people who have enough to be happy but they are never contented. They keep telling themseleves: "Let me get that one final thing and then I'll be happy for life."
We can be happy, even with little in our lives, but the minute we're given something bigger and better, we want even more! We lose our sleep, our happiness, we hurt people around us: all these as a price for our growing needs and desires. That's what joining The 99 Club is all about."
2 comments:
An interesting story indeed... How true it is that we humans always long for more, even though we've already acquired what we need, we have a neverending abyss of desires. Quoting Mahatma Gandhi, "There is enough in the world for everyone's need,but not enough for everyone's greed."
Can't agree more with you, siawase_tenshi. Thanks for dropping by my blog.
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