Somebody told me about a spectacular event that he went for and was very impressed with what the speaker said. The speaker is a medical doctor who decided to go to the rural site of China to offer his medical help for the people there (Some people may knew about this true life story if they had went for the event). He has been at the site for many years and coming back to Singapore once every fortnight.
The doctor said that over there, they are always in need of hydration packs and he learnt how to make the packs there. The ingredients to make are: water, sugar and salt. One day, some young medical doctors came to join his camp. The doctor asked them to make hydration packs as it was running low. The young medical doctors have not done this before and asked him, "How do you know how much to add the water, sugar and salt?"
The doctor said to them, " The solution when you mix it, taste like tears."
The young medical doctors asked, " And how does tears taste like?"
The place that they are in, are so poor and filled with sickness, infection and hardships...who have not cried and tasted their own tears?
This doctor who has a young daughter was also sometimes brought with him to the camp. One day, they came back to Singapore and her grandmother decided to cook green beans as one of the dishes. The grandmother asked the little girl to prepare the green beans by picking out the "deformed" beans and throwing them away. The little girl thought for a while and said, "but they can still be eaten right?"
The grandmother said, "no, just throw them away."
The little girl paced back and forth holding all the "deformed" beans and then showed it to his father. His father comforted her and said, " well, grandma's cooking, we have to listen to what she say."
But the liitle girl asked, " If we take the seeds from this beans and plant it, will the beans grow to become "deformed" again?"
The father is shock yet impressed and proud of her daughter. The answer is "no".
When I asked my friend whether the people attending the event knew what the speaker (doctor) was trying to say. My friend told me it is very unlikely that they will understand the messages because he said the look on the people's face - just lack interest.
1 comment:
Excellent post! I believe this post raises good points with regards to how many of us view our lives. How easily so many of us take things for granted when it comes to our basic necessities. Simply put, we do not take time to nurture and experience what we already have; instead we just take it for granted and assume that they are rights instead of priviledges.
We try to muck with nature and hide the imperfections (as with the beans) but we always forget that if nurtured, imperfections become perfect. Similar to imperfections, we discount people who are different, whether physically or mentally, but we should always remember, the imperfections if nurtured become beautiful.
Always remember not to take things for granted and appreciate what we are given; there are always others who are worse off. Also, learn to appreciate imperfections because these are the elements that make us beautiful beings.
Post a Comment