Life’s Lessons
A pair of shoes

On the first day, as President Abraham Lincoln entered to give his inaugural address, just in the middle, one man stood up. He was a rich aristocrat. He said: “Mr Lincoln, you should not forget that your father used to make shoes for my family.” And the whole Senate laughed; they thought they had made a fool of Abraham Lincoln.

But Lincoln and that type of people are made of a totally different mettle. Lincoln looked at the man and said, “Sir, I know that my father used to make shoes in your house for your family, and there will be many others here…. Because the way he made shoes; nobody else can. He was a creator. His shoes were not just shoes; he poured his whole soul in it. I want to ask you, have you any complaint? Because I know how to make shoes myself. If you have any complaint, I can make another pair of shoes. But as far as I know, nobody has ever complained about my father’s shoes. He was a genius, a great creator and I am proud of my father”.

The whole Senate was dumbstruck. They could not understand what kind of man Abraham Lincoln was. He was proud because his father did the job so well that not even a single complaint had ever been heard. Moral of the story:

No one can hurt you without your consent. It is not what happens to us that hurts us. It is our response that hurts us.