Literature

Grasp All, Lose All

Grasp All, Lose All

Once upon a time, there lived a poor farmer. He had a goose. It used to lay a golden egg every day. The farmer was very greedy. He thought that the stomach of the goose was full of eggs. The farmer sold those eggs and made a good fortune. As the farmer started becoming richer and richer by selling the golden he became more greedy too.

One day, while the farmer and his wife were talking, his wife said: “If we could get all the eggs that are inside the goose we could be richer faster.”

“You are right,” said the farmer, “we wouldn’t have to wait for the goose to lay her egg every day.” So, the couple decided to cut open the goose and get the gold mine inside the goose all at once.

In order to satisfy his greed, the farmer cut the belly of the goose open but found no egg there. He became extremely disappointed and lost the valuable goose forever. Far from becoming rich, he became poorer. Through this incident, the farmer understood that excessive greed for quick money had brought about misfortune for him. He held himself responsible for the misfortune. He had nothing to do to make up the loss.

Moral of the story: ‘Too much greed always leads to great loss.’