Words from the Wise

A Middle Eastern folktale tale well known to children all over Africa: Abu Kassem, a miserly Baghdad merchant had held on to his battered, much repaired pair of slippers even though they were objects of derision. The merchant could not rid himself of his slippers. Every attempt to get rid of them ended in disaster: when he tossed them out of his window they landed on the head of a pregnant woman who miscarried, and he was thrown in jail: when he dropped them in the canal, they choked off the main drain and caused flooding and again he went to jail.

The slippers in the story mean that everything you see and do and touch, every seed you sow, or don't sow, becomes a part of your destiny. The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more."

Excerpts taken from this book review of this book, Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. You should read it. Although a complex, very detailed book, the story is worth reading, full of wise tales.