Short story: An old man who changed an uncouth man, by not reacting angrily, but by reacting patiently
@innertalks (21250)
Australia
June 18, 2023 10:36pm CST
An old man once run a second-hand bookshop.
One day, another much younger man came into his shop, took a book off of one of the shelves, and tore it to pieces, in front of the old man.
"This is what I think of business people like you,"
he said.
The old man never got upset; he merely smiled a beaming smile at the younger man.
Then he said:
"When I tear through a book, it is because I am a fast reader; why did you do that, now, my good man?"
The young man laughed.
"I get what you mean,"
he said.
"Sorry about my actions there, as I was angry that you owned a shop, and I am unemployed."
"Here is my last $10, it will pay you for that torn book."
The old man took the money, and the young man left.
A book can often tell a story of its own, and about why something that happened to it happened to it, as it did here.
There is sometimes more than just a story, in a good book. There is a story to it.
The young man had received a life lesson, worth far more than the $10, that he had just parted with, and that is why the old man kept the money, so that he would know that too.
Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com
5 people like this
4 responses
@RebeccasFarm (87114)
• United States
19 Jun
Yes, this is the key sometimes, to temper one's reactions.
2 people like this
@innertalks (21250)
• Australia
19 Jun
Yes, it is always good not to react too quickly, but to allow a smile to stay in our heart, so we can see things in a different way than the hotness in our mind wanted to see them.
@innertalks (21250)
• Australia
19 Jun
Yes, if we were all as quick to learn a lesson, and not have the pride in us to throw the lesson aside, the world would be better off for that too.
2 people like this
@Shiva49 (26280)
• Singapore
19 Jun
Anger manifests in many ways and some are triggered through jealousy.
The young man should have realized nothing comes easy and there is a price to pay for what we aspire for.
I have seen a few who just see how I am placed but have no idea how I came to this stage in life; I paid the price all through in terms of hard work and discipline.
Good that the old man kept his composure but still managed to drive home a lesson to the younger man that he will not forget.
1 person likes this
@innertalks (21250)
• Australia
19 Jun
The destructive mentality of trying to get something back through such destruction is still prevalent in a lot of places. Here, the glass in bus shelters is constantly smashed by such wrong-thinkers.
They walk along a street causing havoc too, pulling up plants from nearby gardens, leaving shopping trolleys in somebody's front yard, even graffiti is really just wanton destruction of public assets too.
They drop their litter all along the street as they walk, and they never pick up after their dog drops some litter too.
I have had one guy, and his huge dog, dump a large deposit of its droppings continually onto my brick letterbox. That this has repeated itself many times, shows that he allows this on purpose. We have a nice tidy garden, and so his mentality must be that he will show these toffy people something, by his getting his dog to do this.
1 person likes this
@Shiva49 (26280)
• Singapore
20 Jun
@innertalks I recall my colleague talking about his son who had settled in Australia nearly fifty years ago. He was an Anglo-Indian with mixed British/Indian parentage.
When we had mosquito breeding problems, he told me how Australia had managed to have a clean and healthy environment. Obviously, the present generation does not appreciate the hard work and discipline involved.
The former Singapore Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, used to tell how things can go wrong in a jiffy. Each generation has to go through a baptism of fire lest they forget what it takes to make society tick.
No one can achieve anything without putting in some effort.
1 person likes this
@innertalks (21250)
• Australia
20 Jun
@Shiva49 It is good that he was talking about mosquitoes, and not blowflies.
We have blowflies here as big as small birds...lol...
The only reason that Australia appears to have a clean and healthy environment is that Australia is big, and there are not so many people here. Walk down the alleyways in Melbourne, for example, and you will soon see different though. They are filthy.
We have gnats, and midges, or sandflies, here, colloquially known as "blind mosquitoes", (they are actually tiny flies, but look like mosquitoes) which can bite a person, and cause a dangerous fever to develop in them. The bites are irritating and painful. These pests mainly live near bodies of water, such as rivers, and coastal areas.
@leighnyork (1880)
•
19 Jun
That is some wisdom, I'll share this to my friends now
2 people like this
