A Parable of Pride and Perspective

A very wealthy man raised a beautiful son who was given all the finest luxuries life could offer, yet the son had the belief that he could live more fulfilled under his own accord. The son being caught with wild emotions of pride and grandeur was certain that separation from his family and old life would bring him great enjoyment.

The day came where he gave into his desires and he sat down with his loving father to talk about his plan of attack. He asked if he could liquify all his properties and to liberate him with all the assets that his father had accumulated specifically for him over the years. Many of these properties had been in the family for years and it would be difficult for the father to part with them, but his son’s happiness was always the priority. After days of debate and flaring emotions to persuade his son from his desired plans, the father finally agreed to the terms and cashed out many of his business investments.

The son acting in disobedience to his father’s wishes marched stoically forward with his plans to approach the world with a new lens. He thought that once he was filled with this financial compliance he would never need his father for support and it would prove to be a much more rewarding and exciting life.

Now with a massive sum of money in his possession, the son left his hometown and said a final goodbye to all his family to travel to distant countries and experience every desire that his fortune could buy. His newly formed wealth which seemed immense at the time of departure was quickly squandered in full. This loose and reckless living took him from the top of the world to the belly of the most beautiful oceans, and now the son was broke with nowhere to turn.

He knew that he had broke his fathers heart with the decision to leave on his pursuit of the high life. But now, he walked the streets in confusion and failure, looking for places to rest his head at night. Unfortunately he usually found himself in cold alleys crawled up in a ball in attempt to stay warm due to shortages at the local homeless shelters.

“How could I go from living at the top of the world to having nothing, in such a quick turn of events?” the son asked himself. Someone who use to be waited on hand and foot each day by many servants now sat in a position of wanting to even live the modest life of a servant. These servants that he looked down upon for so many years while working diligently for his family now appeared to be a position of safety and luxury in comparison to his broken life. How he wished he could only obtain such a position and comfortable lifestyle as theirs. Going days without a shower was hard fact to swallow at times, not to mention zero access to a clean room with a view that all the servants were offered in partial compensation of their hard work.

He spent months seeking fair employment and was never granted much retribution because he lacked the mandatory skills, education and experience needed for most jobs. He never had to work for anything in life and never developed any mature habits over the years to that would have formed life skills as a typical adult. Stuck in a sour place of regret, fear and loss the son reached a new bottom and began to beg for change to earn just a small sum of money that would afford him a meal or two. “If my father could only see me now, how disgusted he would be” the son criticizes himself aloud. Charged with emotion, the son took some of the donated change given by a passerby and worked up the courage to call his father.

Ring, Ring, the father(F) answers in a humble tone greeting his son(S) in astonishment.

F- “Hello”

S- “I’m sorry for my betrayal”

F- “Son?, is that you? I thought you were dead!”

S- “I may as well be dead father”

F- “What do you mean? Where are you?”

S- “I’m in a bad place, I really need help! I have tried so hard to live without your guidance, but have failed miserably. Please forgive me, I have failed you as a son.”

F- ” I will send a plane to bring you home, where are you?”

The broken son accepted the fathers strong hand once more and a private plane took the son back to his childhood home family. Shaking with fear as the plane touched down, the disgraced enters the home in a cowardice arrival.

Dropping to his knees, begging for forgiveness from his father, “I no longer deserve to be recognized as a son of yours! I beg decency from you to allow me to work as a servant for you and the family”. The father reached down and pulled his son to his knees, embracing him with heart filled compassion. The father had spent so many late nights in contemplation to the whereabouts of his son, not to mention the idea of death. Knowing that his son was alive brought some vital relief to the pent up mental tension.

“No son of mine will live anything but a blessed life”, the father chimes in. “Your scar-filled battle was not at a loss my son, but of an evolutionary change from within. You have learnt the lesson of humility that will impact your choices in life for the rest of your day; a lesson I wished I had learned at such an early age as yours”. As a wealthy man the father had also attracted many testing experiences of the ego, and although none as powerfully life changing as his son’s, still very captivating and uprooting.

“You see son, we were blessed with material riches from an early age but we were left in ignorance of the true life force. Our strife in life is not one learned and felt by the masses every day but is still evidently challenging. The one solace that I have found to be true about all principles through all my struggles, bringing much reward, is to be of service to others. Due to our financial means, we rarely get to experience this powerful life principle, but I assure you after all my education, scholastically and life based, that this principle stands as a foundation that I could never live without”.

The son, sitting in amazement with his father’s wisdom filled perspective was left in awe at the compassion and forgiving tone. “How can I serve you?”, were the only words that fell out of the son’s mouth. “That is the only question you will ever need to ask anyone in life life my son. Now get up and get washed, we have work to do,” the father announced with vigour. The father and son charge forward with their days, only utilizing the wreckage of the past to serve as a gentle reminder to keep them on track of serving others in life.