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 put some coins in the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone could 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’d changed the sign came back to see how things were. The blind boy recognised his footsteps and asked, Were you the one who changed my sign in the 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’d written was: Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it.
Both signs told the people that the boy was blind. The first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second told people they were so fortunate that they were not blind.
The lessons we learn are that we should be fortunate for whatever we have no matter how little, for there’s always someone less fortunate than us.
The second lesson is that we need to be innovative and creative. Think differently. There’s always a better or more effective way to pass on the message of Islam, to correct people or to encourage others.
THE BLIND BOY
