Discontentment
The king with his retinue of ministers were going through the streets of through their kingdom, just to meet and greet his subjects. The king was sitting on an elephant, the ministers were riding their horses. The people in the kingdom were pleased to see the king and greeted him while the entourage slowly passed through the streets of the kingdom.
The king was pleased with what he saw for what he saw in the people were happy faces and excitement. When the convoy turned to the last street before heading for the palace the king was appalled to see a man having disheveled hair, ruffled clothes, unshaven face sitting near a cesspool/ditch full to the brim with dirty water. Everything around him was so nasty.
The king stopped and asked the man sitting near the cesspool if he needed any help. The man instead of saying a Yes or a No remarked and said, “Who doesn’t need help!?” The king was annoyed but instead of reprimanding him he threw a gold coin at him from the elephant’s back.
The destitute tried to catch the coin but in his eagerness to get hold of the coin he closed his hand a little sooner and the gold coin touched his wrist and rolled into where it should not have gone. Yes, it rolled into the ditch. The destitute turned his back to the king and frantically put his hands into the dirty water trying to locate it.
The king was shocked. He called out to the beggar and said, “Take this coin” and threw another gold coin at the beggar. The beggar caught hold of the coin and just about the satisfied king was going to head back to the palace he saw that the destitute had gone back to search for the gold coin in the gutter. He was not satisfied with what he got.
The king called the destitute and told him, “I see that you are unhappy with one gold coin, let me give you a bag full of gold coins, here catch it” and threw the bag full of gold coins. The destitute is now trained enough to catch things that are thrown at him, caught it gleefully showing his teeth which had not been brushed for ages.
The king thought that at last the destitute’ s greed got satiated and began to leave. His Minister called the king and told him to look back. The king saw that the destitute had safely tucked the 2nd gold coin, bag of gold coins and gone back to his favorite ditch to search for the elusive gold coin which he missed. As is the case with any greedy discontented soul, not happy with whatever one receives, here the wealth from the king given to him without any effort and sweat this destitute searches for the gold coin which he doesn’t deserve or need.
The king got down from the elephant went near the destitute and told him, “I don’t know your ways; as a king I would like to keep the subjects happy. I see that you are still unhappy; I now say to you that I would give you one half of the kingdom.” The destitute thought about it for a while. He was greedy but not stupid. He said, “O’ king, give me that portion of the kingdom which has the gutter in which my gold coin is!!
Liking what one has is called Happiness. Knowing when to stop looking for more is contentment. Searching and getting the elusive gold coin can also be called as “Success!!” since you have a goal and achieved it!!