Trendy gadgets, nice cars, huge houses - most of us want these luxuries in life. With the development of industrial age, we are always blinded to be materialistic. We usually forget the word “simple”.

Sometimes, we tend to forget how blessed we are compared to others. We always want to have more and more to feed our never ending greediness. We never find contentment within ourselves and this sometimes results to selfishness.

I recently received a forwarded powerpoint presentation in my email that tackles who is “really” the rich and the poor. The scenario was a conversation between a rich dad and his young son. I thought it would be best to share it to you my readers and judge who is really the rich and the poor.

The story goes like:

One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of of showing him how poor people live. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return trip, the father asked his son:

Dad: How was the trip?
Son: It was great, Dad.

Dad: Did you see how poor people live?
Son: Oh yeah.

Dad: So, tell me what you learned from the trip?

The son answered:

“I saw that we have one dog and they had four.

We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end.

We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.

Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.

We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond.

We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.

We buy our food, but their grow theirs.

We have walls around our property to protect us; they have friends to protect them.”

The boy’s father was speechless. Then his son added. “Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are.”

I also would like to share the motivational speech by Nick Vujicic, a man with no arms and legs but managed to survive despite the challenges that he had.

Nick said: “The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in the path of righteousness for His name sake. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil. For Thou art with me thy faithfulness! Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. Thou prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Thou annoint my head with oil. My cup run over, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Lastly, I would like to share with you a picture that won the prestigious “Pulitzer Prize” which was taken in 1994 during the Sudan Famine.

The picture depicts a stricken child crawling towards a United Nations Food Camp located a kilometer away. The vulture is waiting for the child to die so that it can eat him.

Learn to appreciate what you have and always remember to thank God for all the blessings you have!

P.S. Thanks for the support. I was included as one of the finalists in the 2009 Philippine Blog Awards under the Best Business Blog category.

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