Life is about Making A Difference...

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Help Your Neigbours Grow Good Corn

Cornfield at Sunrise by Timothy O'Keefe
Cornfield at Sunrise


This is a story of a farmer who grew award-winning corn. Each year he entered his corn in the state fair where it wins a blue ribbon.

One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbours.

"How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbours when they are entering in corn competition with yours each year?" the reporter asked.

"Why sir," said the farmer, "didn't you know? The wind picks up pollen from ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbours grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbours grow good corn"

He is very much aware of the connectedness of life. His corn cannot improve unless his neighbour's corn also improves.

The Moral of the Story:
If we want to grow good corn, we must help our neighbours grow good corn.

This is the same with our lives. Those who choose to live in peace must help their neighbours to live in peace. Those who choose to live well must help others to live well, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others to find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all.

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