See Also:
Beginning of a FAMOUS Hero: The William Colgate Story.
Life Lesson #23 – Determine Yourself to a Higher Plane.
Christopher’s backpack was getting ragged, and his mom knew it. But even though she had two jobs, there was still never any money left over for new stuff. Then one day she came home from work and said she had gotten a raise in pay. Finally, Christopher and his sister could have new backpacks. Even though he had never complained about his old backpack, Christopher was so happy about getting a new one!
But then when he got to school with it, the kid who had teased him all year about his old ragged backpack had just come in with mud on his feet. When he saw Christopher’s new backpack, he put his dirty foot on top of it and rubbed mud on it as hard as he could. Just then, the teacher walked in. “Stop right there, young man,” Mrs. Raley said to the boy. “Why would you mess up Christopher’s brand new backpack when you’ve been teasing him all year about his old one?!” The boy just looked at the floor.
“I know why,” said Mrs. Raley. “You have a need to think that you’re better than somebody else. And since your backpack was newer and nicer than Christopher’s, you thought that made you better than him. Now that he has a new backpack, you feel threatened like suddenly he’s better that you.” The boy kind of nodded even though he was still looking at the floor.
“Can you see how ridiculous that is?” she asked. “Nobody is better than anybody and even if they were, it certainly wouldn’t be because of a backpack! You need to remember that HEROES HELP other people with kind actions and kind words.” Well, you know, the boy really did begin to understand. He decided that very day to start HELPING others instead of hurting them, and he started by HELPING Christopher clean the mud off of his new backpack.
– Jim Lord