The Blind Boy
佚名 \/ Anonymous
A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said, “I am blind, please help.”
There were only a few coins in the hat. A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.
Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, “Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?”
The man said, “I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.”
What he had written was, “Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it.”
Do you think the first sign and the second sign were saying the same thing?
Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply told people to help by putting some money in the hat. The second sign told people that they were able to enjoy the beauty of the day, but the boy could not enjoy it because he was blind.
The first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind.
There are at least two lessons we can learn from this simple story.
The first is: Be thankful for what you have. Someone else has less. Help where you can.
The second is: Be creative. Think differently. There is always a better way!
一个盲童坐在一幢楼前的台阶上，他的脚边放着一顶帽子，手里举着一块牌子，牌子上写着“我是盲人，请帮帮我”。
帽子里只有几枚硬币。一个人经过这里，从口袋里掏出几枚硬币扔进帽中。然后，他拿过那块牌子，把它翻过去，在上面写了几个字，又把牌子放了回去，这样过路人都能看到他写的字。
给盲童钱币的人越来越多，帽子很快就满了。当天下午，那个改写盲童牌子的人又过来了，他想看看情况怎样。盲童辨认出了他的脚步声，便问：“你就是早上修改我的牌子的人吧？你写的是什么呢？”
这个人说：“我只是把事实写了下来，把你所写的内容换了一种表达方式。”
他写的是：“今天是个好日子，我却什么都看不见。”
你是否认为第一块牌子和第二块牌子陈述的是一件事情呢？