HOW OUR EGO SOMETIMES
MISJUDGES A PERSON
A
lady in a faded grey dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun suit walked
in timidly without an appointment into the Harvard University President's outer
office. The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks
had no business at Harvard and probably didn't even deserve to be in Harvard.
"We
want to see the President "the man said softly.
"He'll
be busy all day "the secretary snapped.
"We'll
wait" the lady replied.
For
hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become
discouraged and go away. They didn't and the secretary grew frustrated and
finally decided to disturb the president.
"May
be if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave" she said to him. The
President, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple.
The
lady told him "We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He loved
Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed.
My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus."
The
president wasn't touched....He was shocked. "Madam "he said,
gruffly,” We can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and
died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery."
"Oh,
no," the lady explained quickly "We don't want to erect a statue. We
thought we would like to give a building to Harvard."
The
president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit,
and then exclaimed, "A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a
building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical
buildings here at Harvard."
For
a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. May be he could get
rid of them now. The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, "Is that
all it costs to start a University? Why don't we just start our own?"
Her
husband nodded.. The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment. Mr.
and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away, travelling to Palo Alto,
California where they established the University that bears their name.
Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.
Most
of the time we judge people by their outer appearance, which can be misleading.
And in this impression, we tend to treat people badly by thinking they can do
nothing for us. Thus we tend to lose our potential good friends, employees or
customers.
Remember
In
our Life, we seldom get people with whom we want to share & grow our
thought process. But because of our inner EGO we miss them forever.
It
is you who have to decide with whom you are getting associated in day to day
life.
I
end this beautiful story with a note:
Small
people talk about others,
Average
people talk about things,
Great
people talk about ideas.
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