Once upon a time, a
greedy, rich man hired a great mathematician. The rich man wanted the
mathematician to find the best way for him to make the greatest profit in
everything he did. The rich man was building a huge safe, and his greatest
dream was to fill it with gold and jewels.
The mathematician was
shut away for months in his study, before finally believing he had found the
solution. But he soon found there were some errors in his calculations, and he
started all over again.
One night he appeared
at the rich man's house, with a big smile on his face: "I found it!"
he said, "My calculations are perfect." The rich man was going on a
long journey the next day, and didn't have time to listen. He promised the
mathematician he would pay him double his wages if he would take charge of the
business while he was away, and put the new formulas into practice. Excited by
his new discovery, the mathematician was delighted to accept.
When the rich man
returned, months later, he found that all of his possessions had gone. Furious,
he went to ask for an explanation from the mathematician. The mathematician
calmly told him what he had done. He had given everything away to people. The
rich man couldn't believe it, but the mathematician explained it further.
"For months I
analyzed how a rich man could gain the maximum benefit, but what I could do was
always limited. There's a limit to how much one man can do by himself. Then I
understood the key was that many people could help us to achieve the aim. So
the conclusion was that helping others was the best way to get more and more
people to benefit us."
Disappointed and
furious, the greedy man stormed off, desperate at having lost everything to the
hare-brained schemes of a madman. However, while he was walking away
disconsolately, several neighbors ran over, worried about him. All of them had
been helped when the mathematician shared out the rich man's fortune. They felt
so grateful to him that they offered him the hospitality of their houses, and
anything such a special man might need. The neighbors even argued over who
would get to help him.
Over the next few
days, he saw the full results of what the mathematician had calculated.
Wherever he went he was received with great honor, and everyone was willing to
help him in whatever way they could. He realized that his not having anything
had given him much, much more.
In this way, he
managed to quickly set up flourishing businesses, but this time he followed the
brilliant mathematician's advice. No longer did he keep his riches in a safe,
or anything like it. Instead, he shared out his fortune among a hundred
friends, whose hearts he had converted into the safest, most grateful and
fruitful of safes.
Moral
of the story
Everything we give to
others will, sooner or later, return to us, whether or not it be in a form we
expected
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