LESSONS ON LIFE

There was a man who had four sons.

He wanted his sons to learn not to judge things too quickly.
So he sent them each on a quest, in turn,
to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away.
The first son went in the winter,
the second in the spring,
The third in summer,
and the youngest son in the fall.

When they had all gone and come back,
he called them together to describe what they had seen.
The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted.
The second son said no it's covered with green buds and full of promise.

The third son disagreed; he said it was laden with blossoms
that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful,
it was the most graceful thing he had ever seen.

The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe
and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.

The father called his four sons back together, and said, "You see each of you have observed well the condition of a the tree at a particular season of the year, but your judgment of the tree was only partial, and made too quickly based on what you saw on only the one occasion. See to it that you never judge human beings this way. Never evaluate them too quickly or on the basis of one encounter, for it is unfair and unwise. Indeed all living things should only be evaluated over the course of time and after repeated careful inspection, for who knows but the ugliest and most unproductive of living things might some day turn into the most beautiful and fruitful."

- Author Unknown