Don’t let misunderstanding cause you to miss out. There’s a story behind that. This is your daily message from Chad number 665 to upgrade your mental game today by telling yourself a better story because the most important story you hear is the story you tell yourself. This message is dedicated to Christina Lyon, the honorable dean of Problem Solving University.
A poor immigrant family, unfamiliar with the customs of sea travel, boards a ship bound for America. They bring their own meager provisions—some bread, a little cheese, and dried meat—to sustain themselves throughout the voyage. One of the boys, being curious, ventured up to the ship’s dining area. To his amazement, he finds tables with abundant food—fresh bread, fruits, meats, and an ice cream bar with a fudge fountain! A waiter sees the boy and offers to help. The boy asks who this is for. The waiter says it’s available to everyone on board, included in the ticket price. Excited, the child rushes back to the cramped steerage cabin to tell his family about the feast awaiting them. But the father, skeptical and hardened by a life of scarcity, dismisses the boy’s story as too good to be true. “No one gives food away like that,” he says, insisting they stick to their own supplies. So, while others dine heartily above, the family continues to ration their dwindling provisions below deck, unaware that abundance was theirs for the taking.
As far as I know, this is an apocryphal story, but you can imagine how this might have happened. A poor family unfamiliar with “all-inclusive” trips could misunderstand benefits that were part of their passage. The lesson is to question what we may be missing out on because we misunderstand what’s available. The story, whether it’s true or not, taps our heart strings, imagining a family huddled in their cabin, enduring with little when so much is available to them. Missing out on so much just because they didn’t know what was already available. Hopefully the application is obvious to you. How tragic it will be to look back and realize you never took advantage of what had been provided for you.
You can always share your thoughts with by emailing fromchadsmith@gmail.com. You can find these messages on YouTube and Apple Podcasts by searching @fromchad. You can read the transcript of this message and hundreds of others at fromchad.com.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1cTk8gizS2KrjBXQhpYnIa?si=aWN0c6eVQ5ShxW32HCMeYg
