At the Feet of the Old Man

Dear lovely people,

It spread like wildfire within the village that the visiting old man from the North staying at the community inn had powers to interpret dreams, give top-of-the art advice that could help anybody resolve the longstanding difficulties they were facing. One day, most of the people who came to him for advice, gave the same complain. They told him repeatedly that they were neglected by the government, had no opportunities and jobless so suffered from lack of basic resources to make life palatable. The old man told all of them to comeback in the evening for answers.

The yard of the inn was jammed full that evening, everybody waiting for this magic advice that will vaporize their time honored suffering? When the time came, the old man told them that ever since he got to the village, almost all of them came to him for advice and the strange thing was that every time, they complained of the same problems.

Then he told them a story and everyone roared in hysterical laughter. After a couple of minutes, he told them exactly the same joke and this time around, only a few of them smiled. When he told the same joke for the third time, no one laughed anymore.

The old man smiled and said: This is exactly the point I want all of you to take home. You can’t laugh at the same joke over and over. So why then are you always crying and complaining about the same problem?

If you could rather invest the time and energy you spend complaining everyday about the same problems on looking for solutions, you would be on your way to making a lasting change.