President Xi Jing Ping of China said:
As a small child , I was very selfish, always grabbing the best for myself.
Slowly, everyone left me and I had no friends. I didn’t think it was my fault and I criticized others.
But my father gave me 3 sentences to help me in life.
One day, my father cooked 2 bowls of noodles and put them on the table. One had an egg on top while the other bowl had none on top.
Then he asked me to choose a bowl of noodles.
Because eggs were hard to come by those days, I chose the bowl with egg!
I was congratulating myself on my wise choice/decision and decided to wallop the egg. To my surprise, I saw that my father’s bowl of noodles had two eggs at the bottom beneath the noodles!
With much regret, I scolded myself for being too hasty in my decision.
My father smiled and taught me to remember that what your eyes see may not be true.
He added that, If you make a habit of taking advantage of people, you will end up losing.
The next day, my father again cooked 2 bowls of noodles: one bowl with an egg on top and the other bowl with no egg on top.
Again, he asked to choose the bowl I wanted.
This time, I felt smarter so I chose the bowl without any egg on top.
Hmmmmmm to my surprise, there was not even a single egg at the bottom of the bowl!
Again, my father smiled and said to me, My child, you must not always rely on experiences because sometimes, life can cheat you or play tricks on you.
Never be too annoyed or sad, with situations, just treat experience as learning a lesson that cannot be gotten from any textbooks.
The third day, my father again cooked 2 bowls of noodles, one bowl with an egg on top and the other with no egg on top.
He asked me to choose the bowl I wanted.
But this time, I told my father, Dad, you choose first. You are the head of the family and you contribute the most to the family.
My father was very happy and he chose for me.
He chose the bowl with one egg on top. But as I ate my bowl of noodles, to my surprise, there were two eggs at the bottom of the bowl.
My father smiled at me with love in his eyes. He said, my child, you must remember that when you think for the good of others, good things will always naturally happen to you.
I always remember these 3 sentences of my father.
By Xi Jing Ping, President, People Republic of China.
