Who's Poor and Who's Rich

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A friend sent me this today, and I thought you all might enjoy it as well....

One day a father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the firm purpose of showing his son 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 from their trip, the father asked his son, "How was the trip?" "It was great, Dad." "Did you see how poor people can be?" the father asked. "Oh, yeah," said the son. "So what did you learn from the trip?" asked the father. 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." "We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight." "We have servants who serve us, but they serve others." "We buy our food, but they grow theirs." "We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them." With this the boy's father was speechless. Then his son added, "Thanks, dad, for showing me how poor we are." Too many times we forget what we have and concentrate on what we don't have. What is one person's worthless object is another's prize possession. It is all based on one's perspective. Take joy in ALL you have, especially your friends.

-- Cheryl in KS (cherylmccoy@rocketmail.com), September 01, 2001

Answers

Cheryl,

Thats why I never tire of seeing "It's A Wonderful Life".

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), September 01, 2001.


Just like my sister and me. We live on a few acres and a double wide, (paid for) she lives in a $2500 month apartment. I drive a 10 year old car (paid for) she drives a $45000 corp. lease car. I wear jeans from walmart and do my own laundry, she wears $100 jeans and sends them to the cleaners. We are getting ready to go on our fall trip. (We take about 4 nice vacations each year) Invited her to come along. She Can't take off work that long. AND her hubby works ALL the time. You get the picture. I sometimes have to work at NOT feeling like the poor relation. Then I add up the score. Some people call it a balance sheet. WE WIN!

-- Belle (gardenbelle@terraworld.net), September 01, 2001.

No truer words cannot be spoken. Mary

-- Mary (marwel@microserve.net), September 01, 2001.

When my dog and I walk down this country road we live on and I see our small farmhouse netled under that big old growth nintey foot tall water hickory and the two gardens and small fruit trees from the distance , I cannot believe that once I wanted to run in the rat race hard enough to be as rich as the man I worked for. Twenty five years later after being passed by the other rats, I'm happy,getting by and they're losing their hineys on the stock market, but still running the race. I feel very lucky that this rat fell behind after a few laps. I didn't ever get to make my fortune, but I did aquire a lot of common sense and find some "good fortune " during the trip called "a lifetime".

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), September 01, 2001.

There was a saying one time that went:

"Any one with a dollar more than me is rich" but that is just from a material point of view. As for anothers worthless object,if they don't want it,I just take it and sell it on eBay!!!!!

-- TomK(mich) (tjk@cac.net), September 02, 2001.



"The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win you're still a rat"

-- Meliissa (cmnorris@1st.net), September 03, 2001.

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