BY JEROME C. VARON
SOMETIMES a particular experience would serve as a spark to ignite a person to change his outlook and ways.
The experience could be a simple and usual occurrence but the aftermath may contain a flavored twist than the ordinary, leaving a profound effect on an individual.
We know of success stories of individuals driven by traumatic experiences in their early lives as well as of people who changed from bad to good as a result of getting to the bottom at some point in their lives. These stories serve as inspirations no end as the fruits of the changed personalities benefit not only the particular persons but contribute in a lot of ways in making our world a better place.
Zig Ziglar, one of the most inspirational motivational writers of our time, tells a story of a great man who mended his way of thinking early in his boyhood. He was born rich, wearing nice clothes, living in a nice house and fed on a bounty of nutritious food on their family dining table.
In the neighborhood lived a poor boy in a small and dilapidated house. He wore old and mended clothes, and was obviously ravaged by malnutrition as his family had nothing much to eat.
They got into a fight one day, and the poor boy was easily beaten by the rich boy.
The poor boy got up and after dusting himself off told the rich kid that he could have won the fight if he had eaten the same food the rich kid had.
Then, the poor boy turned and walked away.
The rich boy was numbed as he stood looking at the poor boy walking away. The words that he heard broke his heart, realizing it was true. He never forgot that experience and from that day abruptly changed his personality.
It was like staging a revolt by refusing favored treatment because he was rich. He wore inexpensive clothes, suffered the hardship encountered by the poor and mingled with the less fortunate and disadvantaged elements of every place he had been.
He shunned admonitions from his family to take his place in the preferred portion of society. Obviously, he had made peace and became a close friend of that poor boy he beat in the scuffle. The boy whose words jolted the rich boy into changing his personality and ultimately imprinted an indelible brand of compassion has been omitted in history.
But the rich boy who learned a valuable and life-lasting lesson from him rose to become one of the iconic figures – a world-class physician who dedicated his life serving the poor in Africa. His name was Albert Schweitzer.
Imitating Albert Schweitzer would be a tall order for an ordinary man. But learning to see and understand people situated lower than where we are could jolt something inside our heart. Just the way the rich kid was jolted as he was watching the poor boy walking away in this story./PN
