Once upon a time…. Hmm so excited you are. How beautifully we have wired our brain to listen a story.
So there was a family; family of three. Just like ours. Father, mother and their one son. On one of his Bday, parents gifted him a beautiful stone. However they had told him to use it wisely as it was invaluable.

Soon boy grew into a young man and got married. Years after years passed by and his parents grew older and died. Busy with lot of work of life, man also forgot about that stone and its story also faded. Slowly as his family grew he was finding it difficult to maintain a peaceful and comfortable life. Soon he was not able to cope up with the duties. He was working harder and harder but somehow it was not enough.

One night when he was lying there, tired of all day work, staring at stars, he remembered his parents and cried, how there was no problem till they were alive. Then all of sudden, idea of that stone crossed his mind. He remembered about that gift from his parents. Although he was never sure of its worth, he decided to give it a try. The very next morning he opened his long sealed wooden box and searched for the stone, it was lying in a corner of the wooden box..

Without telling his family he left for the nearest town to trade this stone off. He reached to local gold smith and produced this stone to him. That gold smith looked at the stone, confused, and asked him where did he found it. He told him story half heartedly, eager to leave as early as possible by getting whatever he could get out of it.

Gold smith offered him 5 gold coins in exchange of it. Young man was spell bound, he had never seen a silver coin in his life and here were 5 gold coins!!! But soon he came to his senses, and started to realize it was nothing ordinary what he was holding. It was something which he has demeaned out of his ignorance. This stone which was lying with him all his life was no ordinary thing, it was just that this was not at right place. The problem was not with priceless stone, but with its keeper that its true worth was never judged.

He had two options: One was to trade it for 5 Gold coins or look out for real worth of the stone. He chose the second options and refused to trade this stone for that much and collected his stone back. Gold smith increased the amount of gold coin but young man was hellbent. He knew that the price which gold smith was offering was the limit not of value of diamond but of the goldsmith himself. For one time he was tempted to stay there and trade it off with gold smith with that much of amount but somewhere somehow he knew that it was wrong. Something which was surely of much higher value and which was gifted to him, he should not trade it off for unfair value. He moved ahead, from one goldsmith to another and finally he found one goldsmith who was honest and promised to provide real value of that diamond. He believed that what he was gifted was worth much more and this belief finally paid off.

In life we all are that young man and our capability, strength, and talent are that stone. Often we forget about that stone which at very beginning was handed over to us by our creator. Soon we get so busy in our life and simple yet tiring cycles that we hardly recognize what are gifted with. That stone keeps lying somewhere is our consciousness ( that wooden box ). But remember that we shall not wait to life take a toil on us to realize this gift. The sooner we find out its value the better. It is never too late though, the moment you get courage to go out and seek the real value of this stone you realize what you were ignoring.

Then come these Gold smiths: greedy and shrewd. They know the real worth of stone but will always offer you much less in return. They always try to demotivate, discourage, and demean you so that they get a good deal out of you. You must be attentive of these gold-smiths in your life. They can be anywhere in any form. They can be your employers, your relatives, your friends. Don’t get trapped in the offers of these gold-smiths or don’t let them underestimate of the value of your gift.

You are the best judge of your gifts. If you decide to ignore them, no one else is going to value them for you. Always take a break and check if you are trading that valuable stone for less. If you think so, move on and find a better gold-smith. Don’t compromise.

With Love
Papa