Golden Axe:
I am 23 years old; I drink twice or even trice a week, I smoke like a chimney more than 50% of my wakeful time, I have a cigarette in my hand, I hardly sleep in nights and if I continue my life this way soon all the bladders in my body will burn away and I’ll die like all of you are going to someday, may be just a little sooner. I know most of you must have identified yourself with this description at some point or at least you must have remembered someone who is slowly killing himself like me. It seems that guys like me have made every possible mistake that a young man can make in our shoes. Recently I read somewhere that to be happy in life only three things are considered necessary first money, second health and third stupidity; however if you are not stupid enough rest of the two are useless. Now I hope you understand why guys like me are least bothered about the former two things in life.
Once there was a young boy, he had no family, no money, and no real friends almost nothing in his life. Every day he used to take up his axe, his only property, go to the jungle and come back with some logs to sell them in the market. He was a hard working guy and though he had nothing but some how the satisfaction of his hard work kept him going. One day when he was walking by the village temple, the priest called him up and said “you work so hard, you should also start praying to God, he will definitely make your life better.” The boy replied “how will he make my life better?”
“He will give you whatever you want, if you pray enough”, said the priest.
The boy said “but I don’t know what I want?”
The boy was innocent and the priest was clever, experienced.
The priest said “so are you completely satisfied and happy with your life? You don’t want anything else? You want to do the same hard work that pays so less all your life?”
The boy had no answer.
Priest continued “you want more from life, you deserve more from life, you just don’t know and that’s what I am here for, to show you the right way”.
The boy started praying from that day with all his heart. A few years went by and without any fail he continued both his hard work and his praying. One day he climbed a tall tree to cut some big logs of wood and while he was doing so some how the axe just slipped off his hands. Now he is way above the ground and is looking for some help. And out of frustration he says “C’mon God help me, please”, then suddenly out of nowhere a man comes and asks the boy, “what do you want kid?” the boy without thinking for a moment says, “I just want my axe back.”
The man says, “Is that all you want, I can give you more than that.”
The boy realizes that the man was not an ordinary man, and very innocently asks him, “are you God?”
The man smiles and says, “I am his messenger, tell me what you want?”
“But I don’t know what I want, what should I ask for?”
“That, I can’t tell you”.
The boy was tired hanging up there and hungry, he thought for a moment and said, “Give me my axe back and make it a silver one.”
The man smiled and said “you are innocent and good at heart, so I am helping you a little, take your axe and I have made it a gold one.” And the man disappeared.
The boy was happy about the gold axe until the next day when he realized that a gold axe cannot cut wood for him, though he can sell it and live a life without even working that hard. But the boy sat by the same tree and cried. You know why he was crying? Because though he had nothing and he was not happy with his life before, but he has lost that single thing that kept him going, the satisfaction of his hard work. Now he thinks that I never wished for a golden axe, I never even wished for anything, I was alone, I was poor but I had my axe, I had my reason to wake up in the morning and go to work and I had hope.
The story is very simple and at some point would look stupid to some of you but if you think again, me and guys like me are just sitting by that tree, crying with that golden axe in our hands. Hope you would figure out who is the boy, who is the priest and what is the golden axe?
