The Happiness of One Sweet

Source: The Internet

There was a boy of about five years old whose appearance seemed a bit dirty, whether it was because his parents made him look as if he were from a poor background to avoid him being kidnapped, or that he had got himself dirty from playing: either way, his look made people pity him.

He had a sweetie tin in his hand which he constantly shook against his ear. From the metallic rattle it was clear that there was at least one sweet inside!

“You only have one sweet left. Would brother (remark: ‘brother’ here refers to the author himself. In Chinese, say ‘brother’ is a polite way of saying, also it can show one’s friendly attitude when talking to somebody) buy you a new tin?

 “Do you like sweets?”  Why do you keep on shaking the tin and not eat the sweet?”

The little boy replied, “My father said that the money he earns is for food at meal times, we don’t have any money for sweets. I’ll always have my sweet if I don’t eat it, and I keep shaking so that I know the sweet is still inside the tin.”

I smiled at him and went to a convenient store over the road to buy the same package of sweets for the little boy as I presumed this was what he wanted. It was the boss of the little boy’s father who refused to accept that he was not so poor that he could not even afford to buy a tin of sweets. After a bit of persistence, the boss thanked me. I felt it was all worthwhile: what lesson had I learned?

We often feel that no matter how many clothes we buy, somehow there is still one missing; if we own a flat with one bedroom and one living room, soon we would want to change this to a house with three bedrooms and two living rooms. Should we have one million dollars, we would feel inferior by comparison with those who have ten million dollars. In fact, when we compare ourselves to others, have we ever thought about those who are less fortunate than us, those who are less extravagant than us, they are those who may even feel that having a dream is a luxury.

Let’s look at this from another point of view: we will not lose our right to have good fortune even if we do not live in a luxurious life. Good fortune is to have somewhere to live; good fortune is to have an evening meal; good fortune is to have an old car that takes us everywhere. Hence, the feeling of good fortune has never deserted us, it is just dependent on whether we regard that is a good fortune?

Similar to the little boy who kept shaking the sweetie tin to the extent that he could not hear me. That was because he wanted confirmation that his good fortune still existed….

Ordinarily it would be impossible for me to be such a philosopher in concluding some kind of life’s key principle from merely the gesture of a little boy. However, as it may look like I have nothing right now, the gesture of this little boy has initiated my conscience: not to look at what you may not have, but to look at what you still have; moreover, to treasure these properly and not to let your remaining possessions gradually diminish.

Friends: Happiness is really simple, even a sweet is happiness!

When we were young, one sentence from someone could make us want to kiss them out of gratitude and one sentence from another could make us hate them for the rest of our lives. Not knowing what sentence this could be that led our judgments to such extremes, for no matter how hard we try to analyse this it was hard for us to grasp. As we grow up, our different points of viewing value are similar to those lamp posts on both sides of the road, as the further we walk the further they are. We only know how to adopt our current values to pursue those shadows cast on the road. But in the course of this pursuit, we fail to notice that we have already given up our original ideal; let’s treasure what we have got and not to let our own possessions gradually diminish.