An Incident that Changed My Life

I used to be a real spoilt brat. My parents are quite well off and I usually get what I wanted. Being the youngest of three children also guaranteed that I get the most attention. I had no lack of luxurious things much to the envy of my friends and classmates. Whenever a new product came out all I had to do was to make a hint to my parents and sooner than later the new thing would be mine. I never knew what lack was and how spoilt I had become until one day I was witness to an incident that just about changed my life completely.

It began on a beautiful evening when I accompanied my mother t a shopping mall to do some shopping. Shopping usually meant buying a lot of things without regard whether we really needed them or not. My mother, being a rich manfs wife, was also quite a spendthrift. After all, who would not make use of the credit facilities that my father had? We could go on spending and spending without worrying whether we could pay for the things. My father would settle everything.

So there we were buying things without a care in the world. We even got the shopkeepers to send our purchases down to our chauffered car parked in the basement of the mall. Finally when we had just about had enough for the day we came across a scene that really touched my heart.

Right next to the entrance to the shopping mall where throngs people come and go was a very shrunken old man. I had seen many beggars before but never took more than a cursory look at them. This one caught my attention. He had no legs! He only managed to slide along the ground with the help of his thin hands. For a long moment I stood there looking at him. Something inside me was deeply moved. Tears flowed out of my eyes and I had to run into my car to avoid embarrassment.. I cried all the way home. My mother was moved too and we shed tears while our surprised chauffer could do nothing but to drive us home.

Never in my life had I been affected so. The sight of the legless man really made me realise how fortunate some of us were while some of the rest had to suffer like the unfortunate man. While I made a fuss about what brand of shoes I wanted, the poor man did not even have legs. The difference between the haves, myself for instance, and the have-nots was so glaring.

The next day after the incident I returned to the shopping mall with my mother to see what we could do for the poor man. However we could not find him. He seemed to have disappeared. Anyhow after the incident the previous day, I knew something inside me had changed. I no longer put luxury as my top priority in life. My eyes had been opened that little bit. My mother too seemed to have stopped her regular splurges. In fact my father was surprised when he found out that my mother was making donations to charity homes. I was not surprised for I knew how she felt. We knew that we were spoilt by our riches. Now that we realised that we could not continue as before. We were made that little bit wiser.