Apr
The Gold Story
Here is another of the lessons I used to teach.
Suppose I wanted to play a prank. I took gold and molded it to look like an iron bar. I painted it and stressed it to make it look like iron. Then I left it where you could find it. Suppose you needed a piece of iron bar and came upon my prank. You pick up the bar and find that it is very, very heavy.
“Lousy piece of iron,” you mutter. “Too heavy.” And that is true, for gold is heavier than iron.
Next you take the bar and use it to hammer a piece of metal. Not only does the bar do little to the metal, but it bends!
“Lousy iron bar,” you say. “Bends too easy.” And that is true, for gold bends easily compared to iron. Gold is malleable.
In frustration, you take a blowtorch to heat the iron so you can bend it back into shape. Instead, it melts. You are about to say, “Lousy iron melts too easy.” As it melts you see the paint fall away, and there is the gold. Gold melts at a lower temperature than iron.
All along you have cursed that bar for being lousy iron, when in fact it is a much more valuable metal.
That gold is you. You are much more valuable than you think. You are not the lesser, you are the better. So begin now to treat yourself accordingly. Instead of treating yourself like lousy iron, treat yourself like gold.
