The welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all...

At Friday Reflections, we're thankful for all of our wonderful readers and the stories, comments and feedback you regularly share with us.  You make Friday Reflections what it is, and we appreciate it. Happy Thanksgiving to You and Your Family.

Point to Ponder: It's Not What You Gather, But What You Scatter That Tells What Kind Of Life You Have Lived.

Story Line: The welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all...

There was a farmer who grew excellent quality wheat and every season he won the award for the best grown in his county. One year a reporter from the local newspaper interviewed the farmer and learned that each Spring the man shared his seed with his neighbors so that they too could plant it in their fields...

 

“How can you afford to share your best wheat seed with your neighbors when they are entering their crops in the competition with yours?" the reporter asked....

 

“Why that's very simple,” the farmer explained... "The wind picks up pollen from the developing wheat and carries it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior wheat, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of all the wheat, including mine. If I am to grow good wheat, I must help my neighbors grow good wheat"...

The reporter realized how the farmer's explanation also applied to peoples' lives in the most fundamental way... Those who want to live meaningfully and well must help enrich the lives of others, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all...

 

The Original Sources for the quote in point to ponder and storyline unknown.

 

 

At Friday Reflections, we're thankful for all of our wonderful readers and the stories, comments and feedback you regularly share with us.  You make Friday Reflections what it is, and we appreciate it. Happy Thanksgiving to You and Your Family.

Point to Ponder: It's Not What You Gather, But What You Scatter That Tells What Kind Of Life You Have Lived.

Story Line: The welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all...

There was a farmer who grew excellent quality wheat and every season he won the award for the best grown in his county. One year a reporter from the local newspaper interviewed the farmer and learned that each Spring the man shared his seed with his neighbors so that they too could plant it in their fields...

 

“How can you afford to share your best wheat seed with your neighbors when they are entering their crops in the competition with yours?" the reporter asked....

 

“Why that's very simple,” the farmer explained... "The wind picks up pollen from the developing wheat and carries it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior wheat, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of all the wheat, including mine. If I am to grow good wheat, I must help my neighbors grow good wheat"...

The reporter realized how the farmer's explanation also applied to peoples' lives in the most fundamental way... Those who want to live meaningfully and well must help enrich the lives of others, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all...

 

The Original Sources for the quote in point to ponder and storyline unknown.

 

Comments

[Premal]

Hope our politicians follow this.

[Santosh]

Very apt for Thanksgiving, it is also k own as “Ubuntu philosophy”

[FR Team]

Thanks to Santosh. Explanation of Ubuntu Philosophy from Wikipedia:
Ubuntu can best be described as an African philosophy that places emphasis on 'being self through others'. It is a form of humanism which can be expressed in the phrases 'I am because of who we all are' and ubuntu ngumuntu ngabantu in Zulu language.

[RQ-From Palawan]

I remember in K Mart thanksgiving lots of food and Turkey People on a shopping spree . Memory of My Visit to Portland Oregon .1995💓

[Fr Singapore friend]

Thanks for the wonderful story. Indeed we’re all bounded together in our welfare, for better and for worse.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!

[Thomas]

Decide if you think life is fundamentally about competition, or fundamentally about cooperation. Your answer will inform all of your other decisions.

[BHSC]

Good wisdom again.. thank you!

Hope you have a wonderful holiday with your family

[Cebuana]

Happy Thanksgiving to you too.... May God showers us with more love and blessings and my HE also protects us all...

[Levi's]

Happy Thanksgiving and Diwali,
As Bertrand Russell wrote,
"All who are not lunatics are agreed about certain things. That it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than a slave. Many people desire those things only for themselves and their friends; they are quite content that their enemies should suffer. These people can be refuted by science: mankind has become so much one family that we cannot insure our own prosperity except by insuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy."

[humble warrior]

A go-giver type tale.. love it! happy thanksgiving!

[Carol]

That really is the secret key to happiness!
Happy Thanksgiving!

[Sam]

Helping others be it at work or in our society has a way of coming back. I remember a wall hanging at my house. It read "Whenever you give a little love, it comes right back". Apt for current times when more people have seen struggle than ever before.

[Ana]

i love it! what a beautiful message :)