Today's why-I'm-here post is an old story; credit goes to Yohoonews for retelling a story on a similar theme, prompting me to share this one...
Once upon a time there was a farmer who wanted his children to have everything when they were little. As a result they grew up lazy and greedy, and soon wasted everything their parents had given them. Probably the children would never even have visited their loving parents, after they grew up and had homes of their own, if they hadn't believed that their father had a lot of money stashed away somewhere. (Well, maybe while their mother was alive, for the free baby-sitting...)
Anyway, the old farmer soon realized that his children were more interested in this money they believed he had than in his company. He didn't want to tell them that he had no money, for fear of being left alone in this world. When they asked where he'd hidden the money he just smiled. Finally, realizing that the only reason why they were all gathered around at one time was that he was about to die, he said, "Out in the field...somewhere out in the field..." and died.
So of course, instead of selling the land right away, all of those greedy young people came to the old farm every day and watched each other dig and cultivate the fields. Once the fields had been thoroughly worked over they realized they might as well plant something, so they did that. Although they were only part-time farmers, they worked diligently, and at the end of the year they had all gained some profit.
Some say it took them five years, and some say ten years, to realize that there was no buried treasure anywhere on their parents' farm. By that time they had realized that, just like their parents, they weren't going to make great profits every year, but on the whole they were going to gain more than they lost as long as they rotated their crops each year and let each field rest for one year out of seven. They had also learned to appreciate each other's work better. They no longer wanted to sell the land, because it was fun working together.
Just in case anybody's forgotten, or more realistically in case any new readers discover Bubblews and me today...my purpose here is still to help a needy family stay on their own land, instead of having to become homeless welfare cases in the city:
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