The Final Thread

The third and final thread to my trio of concepts about survival. Look 'em all over and see what you can learn from these simple little stories that can be critical principles when dealing with survival.

Once upon a time, there was a wealthy man who hired a carpenter to build a house. "Do your best work," the wealthy man said as he handed the carpenter a satchel full of money. "Here is all the money you will need to finish the house."

The carpenter took the satchel and went shopping for cement for the foundation and wood for the walls. As he purchased the materials, the carpenter thought about all that money in the satchel and decided that he would buy cheaper materials and keep the extra money for himself. "That rich old fool will never know the difference," he reasoned to himself. "These building materials will be hidden under the floor and inside the walls, so he'll never see them."

So that's what he did. After work each night, the carpenter took some of the money from the satchel and went out on the town. He played the role of the "big man" and bought drinks for everybody. At the end of the night, he dragged himself home to his rundown apartment and fell into bed, having squandered the extra money he had hoped to keep for himself.

Soon, the house was finished. It looked great from the outside, covered with bright paint. Anyone walking by would think the carpenter was a genius with construction. Nobody would be the wiser about the third-rate wood used to hold up the walls, or the inferior cement poured in the foundation. The carpenter silently patted himself on the back for his cleverness at deceiving the rich old man who hired him. "The old man isn't going to live very long anyway," he thought to himself, "so he'll never even realize that this house isn't going to last. That cheap furnace will fail and the roof will begin to leak in a few years. The floors will start to sag and creak, and wind will come in around the windows where I saved money by not caulking. The paint will peel and fall off because I didn't apply a primer coat. But that old geezer isn't going to live long enough for this to matter."

The day finally came for the carpenter to present the house to his employer. The wealthy man drove up the driveway, looked at the house admiringly, and said to the carpenter, "I have a surprise for you." Then he handed the hired man the keys to the house. "You built this house, so now it is yours to live in."

I'll braid these threads next time, and will explain my reason for including these stories.