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Saturday, February 16, 2008

The 99 Club

This is a forwarded email to me. I decided to post this to share to all of you.


It's really ironic how people turn out this way... hope we could learn to'get out' of the "99 Club"...

ARE YOU PART OF THE "99 CLUB"?

Hope not... But most of us, not knowingit,is a member of the Club!!Still wondering what I'm talking about?? Well, here's the story that goes along with the question above....... here's how it goes...

Long ago, there lived a King. This King should have been content withhislife, given all the riches and luxuries he had. However, this was not the case! The King always found himself wondering why he just neverseemed content with his life. Sure, he had the attention of everyonewherever he went, attended fancy dinners and parties, but somehow, he still felt something was lacking and he couldn't put his finger on it.

One day, the King had waken up earlier than usual and decided to stroll around his palace. He entered his huge living room and came to a stop when he heard someone happily singing away... following this singing... he saw that one of the servants was singing and had a very content look on his face.This fascinated the King and he summoned this man to his chambers.

The man, his servant, entered the King's chambers as ordered. The King askedwhy he was so happy. To this the man replied: "Your Majesty, I am nothing but a servant, but I make enough of a living to keep my wife and children happy. We don't need too much, a roof over our head and warm foodto fill our tummy. My wife and children are my inspiration, they are content with whatever little I bring home. I am happy because my family is happy".

Hearing this, the King dismissed the servant and summoned his PersonalAssistant to his chambers. The King related his personal anguish abouthis feelings and then related the story of the servant to his PersonalAssistant, hoping that somehow, he will be able to come up with somereasoning that here was a King who could have anything he wished for at a snap of his fingers and yet was not contented, whereas, his servant, having so little was extremely contented.

The Personal Assistant listened attentively and came to a conclusion. Hes aid "Your Majesty, I believe that the servant has not been made partof The 99 Club".

"The 99 Club? and what exactly is that?" the King inquired.

To which the Assistant replied, "Your Majesty, to truly know what The 99 Club is, you will have to do the following:... .place 99 GoldCoins in a bag and leave it at this servant's doorstep, you will then understand what The 99 Club is".

That very same evening, the King arranged for 99 Gold coins to be placed in bag at the servants doorstep. Although he was slightly hesitant and he thought he should have put100 Gold Coins in the bag, but since his assistant had advised him to put 99,that was what he did.

The servant was just stepping out of his house when he saw the bag at his doorstep. Wondering about its contents, he took it into his houseand opened the bag. When he opened the bag he let out a great big shout of joy.....Gold Coins.....so many of them. He could hardly believe it and he called his wife to show her the coins. He then took the bag to a table, emptied it out and began to count the coins. Doing so, he realized that there were 99 coins and he thought it was odd number so he counted again, and again and again only to come to the same conclusion.. .99 GoldCoins.

He began to wonder, what could have happened to that last 1 coin?For no one would leave 99 coins. He began to search his entire house, looked around his backyard for hours, not wanting to lose out on that one coin. Finally, exhausted, he decided that he was going to have to work harder than ever to make up for that 1 Gold coin to make his entire collection, an even 100 Gold Coins.

He got up the next morning, in an extremelyhorrible mood, shouting at the children and his wife for his bad mood, not realizing that he had spent most of the previous night conjuring ways of working hard so that he had enough money to buy himself that gold coin. He went to work as usual, only, not in his usual best mood, singing happily and whistling all day. He didn't even seem to notice that the King was watching him as he grumpily did his daily errands. Seeing the man's attitude change so drastically, the King was puzzled. He promptly summoned his assistant to his chambers. The King related his thoughts about the servant and once again, his assistant listened.

The King could not believe that the servant who until yesterday had been singing away and was happyand content with his life had taken a sudden change of attitude, eventhough he should have been happier after receiving the gold coins.

To this the assistant replied "Ah but your Majesty, the servanthas now officially joined The 99 Club." He explained: "The 99 Club is just a name given to those people who have everything but yet are never content, therefore they are always working hard and striving for thatextra1 to round it out to 100!We have so much to be thankful for and we can live with verylittlein our lives, but the minute we are given something bigger andbetter,we want even more! We are not the same happy contented person we used to be, we want more, and by wanting more, we don't realize the price we haveto pay for it. We lose our sleep, our happiness, we hurt the people around us, just as the price to pay for our growing needs and desires.That is what joining The 99 Club is all about."

Hearing this, the King decided that from that day onwards, he was going to start appreciating all the little things in life. Striving for more is always good, but lets not strive so hard and for so much that we lose all those near and dear to our heart, we shouldn'tcompromise our happiness for moments of luxuries!

By - Reshma Sakhrani
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight." (Proverb 3:5-6)

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