A Poor Young Man

A poor young man was walking along the way, feeling hopeless. He cried and said to himself, “I want to die! I want to die! I want to die!” He said this many times and continued crying.

Suddenly, he met an old man who was walking from the other side. An old man heard the sentence from the poor young man, so he stopped him and asked...

Old man:             What are you saying?

Poor young man: I want to die... (crying).

Old man:             Why?

Poor young man: I want to die... (keep crying).

Old man:             What happened to you?

Poor young man: I want to die... (continued crying).

Old man:             Stop! Do you know who you are?

Poor young man: Who am I?

Old man:             Before I tell you, let answer me a question first.

Poor young man: Okay!

Old man:             Why do you want to die?

Poor young man: I’m so sad (crying for awhile). I’m so poor. I don’t have even enough money to buy food to eat. I can’t survive myself! I don’t have a job. I don’t have any relatives. I live a day only for a day. I have no way to go. I want to die. Why is my life so pitiful? I hate the world. (Crying...)

Old man:             Do you know me?

Poor young man: Who are you?

Old man:             I used to be like you before. I felt hopeless about my life. One day, I want to kill myself because I have no food to eat. I was so hungry at that time. I went to the forest and considered committing suicide there. Suddenly, I saw a wild chicken. So, I tried to hunt it for food. It really scared of me. It ran away very fast and tried to escape from me. Finally, I caught it and saw that it was very nervous. It didn’t want to die. That situation really touched my heart. Only a chicken really tried to earn a living. It never wants to die. So, why we are humans need to! Why don’t we try for our lives? We are different from animals. We can think. We can do a lot more than animals can. Why can’t we survive our own lives? Since then, I stopped my mind. I stopped thinking of killing myself. We are pretty lucky to have been born as humans. We can choose to live because no one wants to kill us. On the other hand, even animals want to live, but if we want to eat them, we will kill them. We have the right to live, but animals don’t. So, which one should be pitier?

Poor young man:          Thank you very much! Now I understand. I am a man. I am lucky enough to be in this world as a human being. I will never think of dying again.

Source book: Sad 

Author: Piseth Ngat

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