Once upon a time, a shoe store owner regularly visited a cobbler to buy leather for making shoes. One day, he purchased 10 meters of leather from the cobbler without checking the actual length. Later that day, he realized he had never verified the length of the leather he bought and decided to measure it.
He placed the leather on one side of the scale and a 10-meter measuring tape on the other side. To his dismay, the leather was shorter than 10 meters.
Frustrated, he went to the town mayor and accused the cobbler of deceiving him. The cobbler was summoned for an explanation.
The mayor questioned, “You are accused of selling leather that is shorter than the promised 10 meters. What do you have to say?”
The cobbler calmly responded, “Sir, I assure you it’s 10 meters.”
The mayor persisted, “But the shoe store owner measured it and found it to be less than 10 meters.”
The cobbler, looking perplexed, replied, “Sir, I don’t have proper measuring tools in my shop.”
The mayor inquired, “Then how can you claim it’s 10 meters? How did you measure it?”
The cobbler explained, “Today, the shoe store owner bought 10 pairs of shoes from me. When he couldn’t find his measuring tape, I used one of the shoeboxes and placed it on the other side of the scale to measure the leather.”
Upon hearing this, the shoe store owner was astonished and felt ashamed as his own attempt to expose dishonesty had backfired.
Moral of the story:
Just like the shoe store owner, what we give to others often comes back to us. We should be mindful of our actions because, in life, we reap what we sow.
