When he visited hell, he saw tables crowded with delicious food, but everyone was hungry and angry. They had food, but were forced to sit one meter from the table and use chopsticks one meter long that made it impossible to get food into their mouths.
When the man saw heaven, he was very surprised for it looked the same. Big tables of delicious food. People forced to sit at a distance from the table and use one meter long chopsticks that made it impossible to get any food into their mouths. It was exactly like hell, but in heaven the people were well fed and happy.
Why?
Because in hell, each person was trying to feed himself.
In heaven, they were feeding one another.” (from “Stories to Solve: Folktales from Around the World”)
I look at my society and I see this “heaven and Hell” scene played or acted out every other day. We are engaged in fierce competition, each trying to get as much “food” in their mouths as they can get.
There is deadening competition……Rat race…. Ego conflict….. Personality clashes….Individualism….. Energy sapping, mind boggling pettiness and pettifogging…… We are undermining and outdoing each other. It is “I will not sicceeed; but he/she won’t succeed either”…… We see life through only one prism: a zero sum game. I must succeed at everyone’s expenses. We think our candle will only glow when all others are either dimmed or extinguished.
We can only reach higher heights when we lift each other up; when we give a hand to pull up or a shoulder for the other to stand on. Some will only see farther if they stand on the shoulders of giants.
Candles don’t dim each other’s glow; they only make the place brighter.
What’s your to have, to become, will be yours to have, to be; none can’t take that from you. Each your destiny, your luck.
Cooperation is much better than competition; one lifts, the other kills.
The earth is too big that each can have a place to stand.
No team wins the championship when its players have different agenda, different objectives.
After all the back stabbing, cutthroat competition, jostling for position in the sun, “I win and you lose” stratagem, pushing and shoving for recognition, then arrives that day when you become food for maggots.
What if our lives are governed by this motto: I am because you are? What if we all pursue a “win-win” in our relationships? No one must “die” for another to “live”. No one must be trampled upon for another to walk to the destination. No one must be knocked down for one to be lifted up.
I am because you are…
