Honesty 101
I had a great Dad opportunity to give a good life lesson to my oldest son (8) in Honesty. We were in this dept. store the other day and my wife was shopping and I was watching the kids run around, trying to keep the roar to a minimum. When this young boy walked by with his Mom holding his hand and he drops a dollar. I never saw the boy drop the money and my wife did not either but my son did. So my wife says Oh look a dollar, get it.
So my 8 year old gets the dollar and was looking at the boy and his mom that had just passed, so I had a feeling, and asked him did those people that just passed drop the dollar, and he said yes the little boy did. So I told him OK lets go find them. We searched all around the store and couldn’t find the little boy. So I told him to hold on to it and maybe we will see them before we leave. Sure enough they walked past us and I told him to give it back to him, in which shyly he did. The people thanked us and I told my son, that was great, you are going to get some good karma. He smiled and kind of walked with a bounce in his step for a while.
Opportunities to teach life lesson’s happen everyday, but we are responsible for taking advantage of situations as these. We need to instill in our future generation a sense of honesty. It is a very dishonest world we find ourselves in, don’t you think? In business, at work, in politics, in fact everything that you encounter these days seems lacking in honesty.
If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything. ~Mark Twain
“The Empty Pot†by Demi (1990, Henry Holt and Company)
In this Chinese tale, a young boy named Ping is an excellent gardener. His flowers and vegetables are always the most wonderful. Imagine how excited he was when the old Emperor called all the young people together and said, “Whoever grows the most beautiful flower from the seed I give you, will become Emperor.â€
Each young person got a pot and a seed from the Emperor and went home to make the flower grow. Ping watered the seed, gave it fresh soil, fertilized it, but still no flower grew. When it was time to bring the pots and flowers back to the Emperor, Ping’s seed had not grown at all. But, all the other pots were filled with beautiful flowers.
The Emperor looked at each flower. Then, he stopped at Ping’s empty pot and smiled. “You will be the next Emperor. The seeds I gave everyone would not grow. You are the only one who was honest and brought back the pot with the seed you had received.â€
Lookout for opportunities to teach life lessons to others, you can do it in a way that doesn’t sound like you are preaching, but can use the moment as the lesson. And pay attention when life is giving you a lesson, we can only get stronger in spirituality , Take Care my friends.
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Comments
Hey Charles,
What a great lesson for your son.
I had a moment of teaching for my 11 year old son today.
Early yesterday morning I had a phone call from Kevin’s
teacher. The class was at the library and Kevin said something disrespectful to librarian.
This morning, I had him write a note to the librarian
saying he was sorry for being disruptive yesterday.
He was not thrilled to write the note this morning, but I explained to him that many kids are disciplined by the librarian in a weeks time, but I bet very few take the time to bring a note saying they were sorry.
Kevin hand delivered the note to her today and she read it while he waited. She patted him on the shoulder and said…
“Thank you, this means a lot”.
He was all smiles in telling me this after school today.
I thought to myself, Kevin won’t be in her mind the one who acted up, but the one who apologized. I also feel that the lesson of bringing her the note will make him more aware of his behavior the next time.
Your post reminded me of “Children Learn What
They Live”.
Children Learn What They Live
By Dorothy Law Nolte, Ph.D.
If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.
If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.
If children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy.
If children live with jealousy, they learn to feel envy.
If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.
If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.
If children live with praise, they learn appreciation.
If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.
If children live with recognition, they learn it is good to have a goal.
If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.
If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.
If children live with fairness, they learn justice.
If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.
If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those about them.
If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.
Dorothy Law Nolte - 1972
Hi Charles,
Beautiful story you have here. Even more is the one you thought your son. It’s the small lessons like these seeded in children that with proper cultivation grows into a strong, positive principles all adults need in life.
And thank you for the nice comment on the blog. Do subscribe 
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Cheers
RoK
Hi Charles.
The power of honesty and its karma is certainly valuable lesson we can learn. What goes around comes back at us in another form, so how we treat people will reverberrate back. Your young son has an instinctual reaction that will bring him new forms of love and trust. It’s heart-warming.
I like “The Empty Pot” story as well. I had posted a variation of this story on my blog called the Flower of Honesty. The version I share is a bit different and came from a text of ancient Chinese lessons/ proverbs.
A couple of nice stories, and a valuable LIFE LESSON for people of any age.
Norman D.