The Egg Story

A wise friend once told me a story about eggs, which I think is very meaningful and true.

Once upon a time, there was a man who had a fat hen that will lay two big beautiful eggs each day. Everyday after the hen had lay the eggs, the man would collect it from the pen to cook it for breakfast. But before he makes his scrumptious omelette or poached egg or sunny-side-up or scramble egg or whatever he feels like having that morning, he would always give one of the egg to his friend who lives next door. So day after day, the friend would always have a yummy egg breakfast too, and that was how it went for a very long while.

Then came one fine day, when the man went to collect the eggs from the pen, he saw a poor man walked past. He felt obliged to help the poor man, therefore gave one of the eggs to him. That day he did not give his friend any eggs, but went straight home to make his breakfast. The friend, who by now was so used to getting an egg everyday from the man, waited by the window for the egg to come.

So waited he did, from dawn to dusk, but no egg ever came. By nightfall, the friend had been so hungry that he was in a very sour and grumpy mood. He marched angrily up to the man's house and asked where his share of the day's eggs was. When the man explained that he had given one of the eggs to a poor man and had not enough to share, the friend threw a fit demanding that the egg was his and should not have been given to the poor man. All these while, the friend had assumed that the egg belonged to him because it was what he got everyday. However, the egg had never been his to begin with because both eggs belonged to the man. It was of course up to the man to give the extra egg to whoever he wants.

Thus, the moral of this story is that we should never take things for granted. It could end up becoming such a habit that it embeds the idea of ownership to things that never belonged to us in the first place. When the things we unrightly claim to be ours are suddenly taken away, we tend to get angry and start putting the blame on others. This is a very false mindset that many of us have. You may think that it is easy to see that the egg's rightful owner has always been the man, but substitute the 'egg' in the story with 'love' and 'trust' or other intangible things, it may not appear that straightforward.

A person's love is never yours to begin with, it is always up to the person whether or not it is to be given to you, and it can always be taken back. A person's trust is also not yours to keep, as trust is a fragile thing that can be easily broken and withdrawn. So never take anything from anyone for granted because one day when you no longer receive it, you will miss it dearly.