{"id":270,"date":"2012-01-05T08:00:52","date_gmt":"2012-01-05T16:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/?p=270"},"modified":"2012-01-06T00:25:49","modified_gmt":"2012-01-06T08:25:49","slug":"4-men-2-paths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/?p=270","title":{"rendered":"4 Men, 2 Paths"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This week I met four men. \u00a0Each has a different story to tell. \u00a0Two have similar stories and lifestyles.\u00a0\u00a0 Two have different lifestyles, but both are worlds apart from the other two men.\u00a0 In simple words, two are the same and two are almost the same.<\/p>\n

Man 1 told me his woes.\u00a0 Patiently I listened.\u00a0 Business is bad. \u00a0Profits are low. Customers aren\u2019t buying as they used to. It was all about him and his goals.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t interested in my woes.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t interested in doing the right thing.\u00a0 His entire monologue was centered on win-lose with win in his favor.\u00a0 He showed no remorse for his dishonorable and unprofessional past actions.\u00a0 I continued to listen as he continued to lie to my face.\u00a0 He contradicted himself a few times over, but I opted not to correct him.\u00a0 It was pointless.\u00a0 I had already decided that there isn\u2019t even a shred of honor in this man.\u00a0 I was eager to get miles away from him.<\/p>\n

Man 2 is much older than me. \u00a0He is someone I should respect for all his years of experience or just simply for his years of existence. \u00a0Things were reversed. \u00a0He showered me with an abundance of respect and kindness.\u00a0 I was embarrassed and deeply humbled.\u00a0 He is a hardworking middle-class man trying to make ends meet.\u00a0 He lives in a small old house in a crowded neighborhood. \u00a0He invited me to his home and I felt like I would be visiting a grand palace. \u00a0The actual dimensions of his home became irrelevant. \u00a0If you don\u2019t count his bank balance as an indicator of rich-poor, he is a very rich man. \u00a0He has a big heart.\u00a0 I am honored to know him.<\/p>\n

Man 3 shares the same lifestyle as Man 1.\u00a0 Perhaps not surprisingly, he sang the same tune as him.\u00a0 Business is down.\u00a0 Loss is up.\u00a0 The economy is unkind. \u00a0He lied and twisted facts in ten different ways.\u00a0 I could easily have proven him wrong with a few phone calls and emails.\u00a0 Arguing was futile.\u00a0 I just nodded and listened.\u00a0 After sometime I could no longer hear his words.\u00a0 I heard static.\u00a0 My mind had a battle going on with itself.\u00a0 Tolerate.\u00a0 Don\u2019t tolerate.\u00a0 The former won and I was forced back to reality.\u00a0 Trust and honor don\u2019t exist in this man\u2019s modus operandi.\u00a0 May I never see him again, but may he one day sit on the other side of his big desk.<\/p>\n

Man 4 didn’t particularly want to tell me his personal story, but I was curious to know. \u00a0We had time on our hands, so I struck up a conversation.\u00a0 He is a simple man who went out of his way to assist me on his only day off.\u00a0 He goes to work on a bicycle riding 30 minutes each way 6 days a week. \u00a0Sometimes it takes him 60 minutes one way.\u00a0 He gets wet in the rain, he feels cold in the winter, and he melts in the blazing summer heat. \u00a0He lives in a tiny one room in a congested poor neighborhood.\u00a0 As his story rolled on, he grew more excited to tell me\u00a0about his past, present, and future.\u00a0 Each sentence was laced with a genuine smile.\u00a0 I was sad to part ways.<\/p>\n

This week I learned valuable lessons from four men.\u00a0 Each with their different outlook on life gave me plenty of food for thought.\u00a0 Man 1 and 3 with all their material possessions have not captured the essence of life.\u00a0 Their having so much and yet complaining and deceiving confirms, that materialism doesn\u2019t soothe the soul.\u00a0 Man 2 and 4 lack material possessions yet radiate a happy disposition.\u00a0 They have an innate desire to assist others which continues to gives one hope, that there are more pure souls in this world than we suppose.\u00a0 May they be contagious and may we all be infected, because theirs is the right path.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week I met four men. \u00a0Each has a different story to tell. \u00a0Two have similar stories and lifestyles.\u00a0\u00a0 Two have different lifestyles, but both are worlds apart from the other two men.\u00a0 In simple words, two are the same and two are almost the same. Man 1 told me his woes.\u00a0 Patiently I listened.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,15,12,68,10],"tags":[255,118,31,151,150,149,148],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":276,"href":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions\/276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}