The Kaizen Blog

Attempts to continually improve in all walks of life

Beggar and The Pot of Gold

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Following The Pot of Gold

Image by vgm8383 via Flickr

This is another story I heard during one of the personal development courses I attended recently. You can read the previous one here

Once upon a time in a small town in India, there was a temple. Several devotees visited it both in the morning and in the evening. After a while, one of the very poor person from some nearby place came there. He had lost everything he had. He collapsed outside the temple. People being very nice, helped him with some food, water. He started getting better, but he had no where to go. He setup his bed under nearby tree. Passersby started giving him some money. Eventually, he got better, but by now he had become comfortable being a beggar. He did not try anything else, since he was doing OK just begging.
People did not like having a beggar outside the temple, but they continued to offer him small change out of habit, and out of their goodness.

After a while, the beggar died. People arranged for his last rites. Then they decided to clean the beggars place so that there won’t be any more beggars outside their temple.

They cleaned the place. But then the decided to just dig up the place while they are at it, and just be absolutely sure. After a few strikes, they hit something. After careful examination, they found a pot full of gold coin. (They used it renovate the temple)
Poor Beggar, he was sitting on a pot of gold his whole life, but never realized, and continued his life begging to people for his day to day survival.

Several of us go through life unknowingly sitting on a pot of gold (our skills, unique abilities) never realizing it.
What can we do to uncover the hidden potential, so that we don’t end up like the beggar in the story ?

Please share your views in the comments.

Posted via email from Mandar Vaze’s Posterous

Written by Mandar Vaze

April 21, 2009 at 11:07 pm

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