How good are you at taking care of things under your care? How much do you take care of your company’s assets despite knowing that when you leave the firm, you will have to hand the items/products back? Do you take care of the furniture and other things in that house you are renting as you would take care of your own house?
Once upon a time, a boy moved house. Upon entering his new bedroom, he saw that it was full of toys, storybooks, pens, pencils… and all of it was perfectly tidy. That day he played all he liked but went to bed without having tidied up.
Mysteriously, the next morning all the toys had been put back in their proper place. He was sure no one had entered his bedroom, but the boy didn’t pay much attention to this. The exact same thing happened that day, and the next, but when the fourth day arrived and he went to retrieve his first toy of the day, the toy jumped out of his hands and said, “I don’t want to play with you!”
The boy thought he was seeing things, but the same thing happened with every toy he touched. Finally, an old teddy bear said to him: “Why are you surprised that we don’t want to play with you? You always leave us so far from our proper place, the place we feel most comfortable and happy. Do you have any idea how difficult it is for the books to climb back up onto their shelves, or for the pens to jump into their tin? You haven’t a clue how uncomfortable and cold the floor is! We won’t play with you any more until you promise to place us in our little houses before you go off to bed.”
The boy remembered how comfy and content he felt in his bed, and how bad he felt when he had once slept in a chair. He realized how badly he had treated his friends, the toys. He asked their forgiveness and from that day on, he always packedup his toys nicely in their special places before he got into bed.
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Just like the boy, we are often guilty of not being a good steward of the people or things in our care. Whether it is things or people, if we don’t take good care of them, with time they respond negatively. We may not be good stewards to our friends if all we expect is to receive from them without us playing our part in giving too. After a while, just like the toys which did not want to play with the boy, our friends realize that we are not genuine and they leave us.
On the other hand, if we are not good stewards of our environment, we know what happens when you cut down trees. When we are not considerate of our carbon emission, when we don’t take care of our rivers, all this leads to a response by nature known as Climate Change, which affects us negatively through global warming. Are you a good steward or do you behave like the little boy? To read more posts by Mercy, click HERE
