Imagine you’re in London’s Heathrow Airport. While you’re waiting for your flight, you notice a shop selling cookies. You buy a box, put them in your travelling bag, and search for an available seat so you can sit down and enjoy your cookies. Finally, you find a seat next to a gentleman. You reach down into your travelling bag and pull out your box of cookies. As you do so, you notice that the gentleman starts watching you intensely.
He stares as you open the box and his eyes follow your hand as you pick up the cookie and bring it to your mouth. Just then he reaches over and takes a cookie from the box, and eats it! You’re more than a little surprised at this. Actually, you’re lost for words. Not only does he take one cookie, but he alternates with you. For every one cookie you take, he takes one.
Now, what’s your immediate impression of this guy? Crazy? Greedy? He’s got some nerve! Can you imagine the words you might use to describe this man to your colleagues back at the office? Meanwhile, you both continue eating the cookies until there’s just one left. To your surprise, the man reaches over and takes it. But then he does something unexpected.
He breaks it in half and gives half to you. After he’s finished with his half he gets up, and without a word, he leaves.
You think to yourself, “Did this really just happen?” You’re left sitting there dumbfounded and still hungry. So, you go back to the shop and buy another box of cookies. You then return to your seat and begin opening your new box of cookies when suddenly you glance down into your travelling bag.
Sitting there in your bag is your original box of cookies………still unopened.
Only then do you realize that when you reached down earlier, you had reached into the other man’s bag, and grabbed his box of cookies by mistake. Now, what do you think of the man? Generous? Tolerant? You’ve just experienced a profound paradigm shift.
Now, is it time to change your point of view?
Think of this story as it relates to your life.
