Chili Story

From a magazine...

Long ago in Africa, a woman whose only son had died in an accident was full of sorrow until she was told about the wise man who could bring her son back to lire. The woman went to him and asked: “Tell me wise man, what magic potion can bring my son back to life?”

He said to her: “I can give you the magic potion. But for it to work, you have to find me chilli seeds from a house that has never known sorrow. These seeds will drive out the sorrow that is now in your heart.”

The woman began her search. In the distance she saw a large, beautiful bungalow. “Surely this is a house that has no problems!” she thought. Knocking on the door she said: “I need your help. am looking for a home that has never known sorrow. If you can give me some chilli seeds from your kitchen, it would bring me back my happiness.”

The owner told her: “You’ve come to the wrong place...” and began to describe the unhappiness that was surrounding the family.

“How sad the lives of these people are. Who better to help them than I, since I have had misfortune of my own?” The woman went from house to house. But wherever she went, she found one tale after another of sadness. She spent her time helping these people make their lives better and their burdens lighter.

Soon, the woman found that her own sadness had gone. Her quest for the magical chilli seeds had driven away her suffering. When she focused on others and helped them with their sorrows, she was able to overcome her own.

The Power of Giving

Internet world has made a stark and unumbiguous example and lesson on the power of generosity. Of course technological innovation becomes a part of the parcel. The more you give, the more you win the heart and mind of many people. Have a look at the phenomenal fame and growth of the just-acquired-by-google video networking youtube.com.

Following the line of Google's everything-online-is-free jargon, youtube . com just gives away everything to the end-user that is you and me. Blogger.com (blogspot) which gives its users almost full control of its content, feedburner . com which is so innovative and beginner friendly and the easy-to-use and innovativeness of mybloglog.com are among other free online services that stand out among the rest; both for their innovation and generosity. It's in line with the old adage that "the more you give (material or non-material thing), the more you get (heart, mind and respect)." And in business term, more profit.

It's with the same reason why Chinese Indonesian are generally more successful in their business than the so-called pribumi (literally, the sons of the soil. Term being used by Suharto's regime to divide people on ethnic base).

If you want to buy something, say a laptop, you'd check out some laptop shops to compare prices and look at the most "negotiable" ones. Almost certain, you'd end up in a shop owned by ethnic Chinese not only will you get the better price, you'd also get a relatively more professional treatment. While the pribumi wants a bigger short term profit, ethnic Chinese tends to take a long term plan--to win heart, mind and loyalty of consumers--as more significant. And that will lead to a long term consequences as well, for the worse and for the better respectively.

In day-to-day life, one who is more generous and "giving", materially or emotially will get more respect and fondness from others. Despite his intellectual shortcoming, President George W. Bush is known for his emotional generosity. No less than Hillary Clinton who testified in a media recently that he's very charming and loveable. A charming, loveable and charismatic personality is usually closely related to a person who's generous. Generosity also means the readiness to budge, to appreciate, not to be critical to others on personal matters and being self critical instead. Sometimes this kind of generosity is playing more important role in building up our credibility as a person as well as a leader.