Problem Solving

A rich man, every night, prays the same prayer to God. He repeats his prayers again and again daily. In his words, he would ask, “God, please do one favor for me, at least one favor — and I have been asking this my whole life. As clearly as I know, I am the most unhappy man on the earth. Why have you made my life full of problems?

I am ready to exchange my difficulties with anybody else, anybody will do — just let me exchange my troubles with somebody else. I don’t ask for bliss. Can’t you give me only this single opportunity to exchange my worries with somebody else? This is not much!”

And one night while he was in a dream he saw God. A heavenly voice came from high above saying, “Gather all of your miseries into bags and bring them to the temple hall.”

So the whole town packs their miseries into big bags and they bring them to the hall. This man has a big time: “So the time has come! It seems something great is going to happen!”

He rushes with his bundle. On the way, he finds others also are rushing.

By the time he reaches the hall, he becomes afraid, very afraid, because he sees people are carrying bigger bags than his. People that he had always seen smiling in beautiful clothes and always saying nice things to each other, and they were carrying bigger bags!

He starts becoming a little hesitant about whether to go or not to go, but he has been praying for his whole life, so he says, “Let us see what happens.”

They enter into the hall. The voice says, “Put your bags around the hall.” They put on their bags, and the voice says again, “Now you can choose any bundle that you like.”

And the miracle of miracles happens: everybody rushes to his bags!

This man also rushes so fast towards his bag, afraid that if somebody else chooses it then he will be at a loss. Everybody has chosen his bags, with great relief and they are all happy, carrying their bags back to their homes.

Even the man who prayed for his whole life just to exchange his miseries is very happy, for the simple reason that “Who knows what is in the other’s bags? At least we are aware of our problems. And we have become accustomed, we have become adjusted to our difficulties.”