The sound of applause muffled the speaker’s amplifying device. He seemed to be the only one who could hear his constant “thank you”‘s. But as all things do the clapping eventually receded away. He said a finally thank you, and then began his speech.
He reached for his pocket and pulled out his brown leather wallet. Sifting through, he searched for a $20 bill. After finding one, he held it up high over his head with both hands. The bill was crisp and new one, and seemed as if it had just been taken out of the factory. The deep green seemed to sparkle with freshness. The $20 dollars bore the face of former president Andrew Jackson; the engraved head stared faithfully at the audience. The audience stared back with great envy.
With the bill still raised, the speaker asked, “How many of you would like to have 20 dollars? Raise you hand.”
Uniformly, every person raised their hand.
The speaker chuckled to himself, and continued on, “How many of you would still want this bill if I did this?” With that being said, he took with $20 with one hand then crumpled it into a deformed ball. Then, he repeated his previous question, “Now, do you still want it?”
The thousands of hands in the audience still immediately shot up.
“Very good.” The speaker said in response. “But, what if I do this?” He dropped the crumpled bill onto the ground and stomped several times on it. The dirt from the speaker’s shoe and the creases he made had turned the once new $20 into a filthy and crumpled slip of paper. He bent over, and picked up the grimy bill. He attempted to straighten it on his tuxedo, but the bill still bore the markings from the damage it received.
Once again, he asked the question, “Do you all still want this dirty $20?”
Without change, all of the audience once again raised their hands.
The speaker suddenly turned serious, he looked at his viewers and said, “I think we all learned a lesson today. No matter what I did to the bill, every one of you still wanted to take it for your own. Why? It’s because all of you know that regardless of what I do to this bill, it’s still worth $20. Even if it is soaked in water, or crumbling on the edges, the value never changes. It always remains $20.”
The speaker paced across the stage, and continued his speech, “The same concept applies to our very lives. When we have been damaged by a misstep, or rubbed with dirt in our faces, we must remember that we are still worth the same value. Our talents are what determine our value. No matter what happened in the past, or is about to occur, our aptitude is still within us, our value is still the same. In times of trouble, we must remember this concept. Never let our past cloud up our future…”