Words vs. Actions – The boy who liked eating sweets

There once was a boy who loved eating sweets. He always asked for sweets from his father. His father was a poor man. He could not always afford sweets for his son. But the little boy did not understand this, and demanded sweets all the time.

The boy’s father thought hard about how to stop the child asking for so many sweets. There was a very pious man living nearby at that time. The boy’s father had an idea. He decided to take the boy to the great man who might be able to persuade the child to stop asking for sweets all the time.

The boy and his father went along to the great man. The father said to him, “O pious man, could you ask my son to stop asking for sweets which I cannot afford?” The great man was in difficulty, because he liked sweets himself. How could he ask the boy to give up asking for sweets? The man told the father to bring his son back after one month.

During that month, the pious man gave up eating sweets, and when the boy and his father returned after a month, the pious man said to the boy “My dear child, will you stop asking for sweets which your father can not afford to give you?”

From then on, the boy stopped asking for sweets.

The boy’s father asked the man, “Why did you not ask my son to give up asking for sweets when we came to you a month ago?” The pious man replied, “How could I ask a boy to give up sweets when I loved sweets myself. In the last month I gave up eating sweets.”

A person’s example is much more powerful than just his words. When we ask someone to do something, we must do it ourselves also. We should not ask others to do what we do not do ourselves.