A man once found a boy crying on the street, and asked the little chap
what he was crying about. The child told him he had just lost a nickel.
The stranger gave him another, and then the boy began to cry again. This
greatly astonished the man, and he asked him why he was crying again.
The little chap said, "Because, if I hadn't lost that other nickel, I'd
have two now."
That was, of course, a very foolish way to look at it, but that is the
way a great many people look at things. This is what is called
covetousness. Covetous people always want something they have not, and
so they are usually unhappy.
The way to be happy is to think of the things you have, and not of the
things you have not. A man was once told that Cæsar was going to cause
him great unhappiness, and he replied that if Cæsar could blot out the
sun with a blanket he might make him unhappy. But if he had the sun to
shine upon him, he would still be happy. We all have the sun to shine
upon us, and other things a-plenty to be happy over, if we will just
count them up. Let us not be like the little boy crying about the nickel
he did not have.