A Real Beauty
[00:27.69]A young man comes to Pebble Beach near Monterey,
[00:32.65]California on behalf of his boss,to acquire a beach house.
[00:39.21]The vendor signs the contract,elated with the payment,
[00:38.21]and then the young man suddenly says:
[00:42.28]"There are some small details to be arranged before my boss moves in.
[00:48.35]We've covering all the costs,and you only have to get the job done."
[00:54.59]"What are the details?"
[00:57.83]"First,there is sand all the way between the house and the ocean shore.
[01:04.99]My boss likes it when there is grass covering his way to the beach.
[01:10.63]Next,there are rocks to the west.
[01:15.17]They obscure the sunset.
[01:19.25]My boss loves to watch the sunset over a straight horizon,
[01:25.20]so get these rocks down.
[01:28.97]And finally,my boss also loves to see some sea lions in the water.
[01:35.52]So buy at least 40 of them,
[01:39.57]and you have plenty of fish around here to feed them."
[01:44.25]In a few weeks,after all those jobs are done,the boss comes.
[01:50.31]He walks on the damp grass from the house to the ocean,
[01:55.17]seats himself comfortably in an armchair,
[01:59.92]enjoys the sun setting down behind a perfectly straight coastline.
[02:05.67]And it really gives him a pleasant surprise
[02:10.03]to see so many sea lions near the shore.
[02:14.76]Some of them toss their heads from side to side,
[02:19.72]and others flip backwards and slowly glide out of sight,
[02:25.47]with their tails slapping the surface as they disappear into the water.
[02:31.14]"A real beauty,one of a kind,"he observes thoughtfully,
[02:37.98]"and it's something no money on Earth can ever buy."
[02:42.94]Three Friends
[03:09.30]A dying man had three best friends:Nick,Casey,and Peter.
[03:17.06]He gathered them at his bedside
[03:21.61]and handed each of them an envelope containing $10,000 in cash.
[03:28.14]He made them each promise that after his death,
[03:33.31]they would place the three envelopes in his coffin.
[03:38.17]He told them that he wanted to have enough money to enjoy the next life.
[03:44.72]A week later the man died.
[03:48.67]At the wake,each of the three friends,one after another,
[03:54.83]put an envelope in the coffin and bid their old friend farewell.
[04:00.71]By chance,these three met several months later.
[04:08.16]Soon Nick,feeling guilty,blurted out a confession
[04:15.00]saying that there was only $6,000 in the envelope he placed in the coffin.
[04:22.26]He felt,rather than waste all the money,
[04:27.02]he would donate it to the homeless in the subway stations.
[04:32.16]He asked for their forgiveness.
[04:36.13]Moved by Nick's sincerity.
[04:39.89]Casey confessed that he too had kept some of the money
[04:45.35]for a worthy medical charity.
[04:49.43]The envelope,he admitted,had only $4,000 in it.
[04:55.18]He said,he too could not bring himself to waste the money
[05:00.95]so frivolously when it could be used to benefit others.
[05:06.88]By this time Peter expressed his deep disappointment
[05:12.63]in the behavior of two of his most trusted friends.
[05:18.50]"I am the only one who kept his promise to our dead friend.
[05:24.36]I want you both to know that the envelope I placed in the coffin
[05:30.39]contained the full amount.
[05:34.02]Indeed,my envelope contained my personal check for $20,000,
[05:41.39]and I took your $10,000 as change." |