Saturday, November 15, 2008

A Story from Mmudahlupa

Have you ever, at any one time, had the feeling that life is bad, real bad, and you wish you were in another situation?

This is a story from Mmudahlupa:

After a conversation with one of my friends, he told me despite taking 2 jobs, he brings back barely above 1K per month, he is happy as he is.

I wonder how he can be as happy as he is considering he has to skimp his life with the low pay to support a pair of old parents, in-laws, a 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 touring India after a major setback.

He said that right in front of his very eyes he saw an Indian mother chop off her child's right hand with a chopper. The helplessness in the mother's eyes, the scream of pain from the innocent 4-year-old child haunted him until today.

You may ask why did the mother do so; had the child been naughty, had the child's hand been 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 could go out to the streets to beg.

Taken aback by the scene, he dropped a piece of bread he was eating half-way. And almost instantly, a flock 5 or 6 children swamped towards this small piece of bread which was covered with sand, robbingbits 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 was dumbfounded but willingly sold everything. He spent less than $100 to obtain about 400 loaves of bread (this is less than $0..25 per loaf) and spent 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 his life he wondered how people can give up their dignity for a loaf of bread which cost less than $0.25.

He began to tell himself how fortunate he is. How fortunate he is to be able to have a complete body, have a job! , have a family, have the chance to complain what food is nice and what isn't nice, 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, I should not feel 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.

Moral Lesson:

"Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, it is the realization of how much you already have."

When the door of happiness closes, another opens, but often times we look so long at the closed door that we don't see the one which has been opened for us.

It's true that we don't know what we've got until we lose it, but it's also true that we don't know what we've been missing until it arrives.

The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.

The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past; you can't go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.


***

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi CTSB, I'm on the wrong side of 40 now, aging surely, but hopefully, slowly. I have a checkered past and a functional memory. That makes me invariably antsy pansy coz some things I have said and done bothers me very much. Your article today yanked me out of a rut and has wonderfully realigned my perspective on to the true north. Our worries dims in comparison to them. With that I leave you with a,

Thank you and thank you,

Mike

Anonymous said...

hello semua manusia adalah mudah lupa
Biar mudah ingat jangan mudah lupa

Pure Malaysian

Anonymous said...

mav,great moral lesson.i'm indeed consider myself fortunate with a good but stressssssss..ful job, 2 wonderful kids & unfortunately ONE WIFE ONLY!- Mmudahlupa

Anonymous said...

Perhaps a moral lesson of yet another government dysfunctional. Giving out bread, will solve the problem temporary.

In a highly aware civil society, people know that, you can never begs for the rights, instead, you must fight for it.

This does not contradict to contentment. Ironically, to achieve the real contentment, the society must evolve to a self sustainable level, which require people fight for it.

Honestly, I am quite sick of various "story" that talk about low level contentment that are not sustainable. Even in mother nature, prey animals will not give up their life easily because of they born as prey animal.


-----------------
The story are rather shocking. Knowing the children will become beggars, it is sad that the mother did not take the step of birth control. Because India is a country strongly support the birth control.

TP said...

How touching indeed!

There is a saying that somewhat mirrors the article:

"Once I complained that I had no shoes.
Until I saw one with no feet."

Anonymous said...

For every "misfortune" we have, there are others who are worse off than we are.

Count our blessings and be happy!

*Forget the diamonds. Bayi hasn't got any. He's only slightly better than a beggar with leg shorter than the other.*

Maverick SM said...

Mike,

What you said touch my heart and both of us can look forward to better ourselves.

Pure Malaysian,

That's a good advice.

Mmudahlupa

Get going and better ourselves.

Moo_t,

We should be empathetic and understand the social reality of others.

Tau,

Ya, a good line of words for us.

Bayi,

But I still am waiting for your diamonds.

Gukita said...

Great moral story. If this story cannot make us appreciate our condition more, I dont know what can..

Anonymous said...

Mother chopping off child's hand so that he could beg. That mother's head should be chopped off. The one child policy advocated by Deng Xiaoping needs to be implemented in India

Avatar said...

Dear Mave,

That's a nice story. Unfortunately, what's most depressing is that poverty and oppression by the wealthy is prevalent from past to present. The oppressed one day becomes the oppressor. The powerless will rise to power one day, yet fail to improve things. Sometimes, I wonder: Will humankind ever change?

As to the mother and her child... I would not be so quick as to judge them, unless I were in their shoes. Living in poverty and squalor without any hope for the future? Eeeking out a meager existence without any shred of human dignity and struggling to live from day to day... I wonder whether I would have the courage to continue living in such conditions?

BTW - That's a short break! Welcome back :)

Rgds

Anonymous said...

Mav, i agree. we need to `Chia You' & better ourselves. Reading is one of the fundamentals so as to have a great impact on ourselves. i'm beginning to feel a little progress albeit still long way to high achievements.- MMudahlupa

Anonymous said...

when you have stupid and dumb mother/parent, you'll have a suffering kid .....

Anonymous said...

Frustration is the gap between desire and realisation.

Nothing wrong with setting high goals and striving to achieve them. But if you feel frustration, then re-examine your goals and ask yourself, what do you really need?

In this world of material stimulation, desire has no limit. So you have to set your own ceiling on desires.

That way, you give yourself a chance to live a fulfilling life.

Maverick SM said...

Gukita,

I too share your opinion.

Avatar,

I agree that we should not judge the mother for we are not in her state of predicament.

Mmudahlupa,

Work harder and read more books.

Denzook,

I do not agree with you and you are in essence shown to be one who lack compassion and empathy.

Singham,

I agree.

Anonymous said...

agree. been buying books every months without fail & read a chapter daily at least.

Today i received a comment from MINDEF officers ragarding my project presentation & little did i realise that they commented on the effectiveness of diplomatic languages that i used. in fact they request i carry on rather than my MD. well, at least motivation on my self improvement.Read..read...read.._Thks Dr for your encouragement. Mmudahlupa

Maverick SM said...

Mmudahlupa,

I am happy to hear of your improvements. Keep working harder.