By:Curtis Morton
The way I see it, SELFISHNESS does not pay.
As a little boy, I was real disgusting to deal with. Looking back, I think I was just being referred to as an ‘obnoxious kid.’
I did many things that I am certainly not proud of and just today, I reflected on one particular incident.
It was a hot afternoon. School was out—as is the case now. That reminds me: Parents, find something for your children to do while they are on vacation, because the Devil finds work for idle hands to do.
And so I guess I was feeling listless, needing something to do.
We had a huge guinip tree, with branches hanging all over the main road.
Now I really could not care less about laws at that young age and besides, how was I to know that the law permits for fruits hanging over somebody else’s property or over public property, to be accessible to such persons who have reasonable access to them.
As far as I was concerned, the branches with the guinips hanging over the main road, belonged to my family. We were the sole owners and ought to dictate such.
And so I guarded that guinip tree with a passion unsurpassed.
So, on this day, in my idleness, I saw a woman from a nearby village, passing by. I really did not pay her any mind, as I thought she was going about her business.
Lo and behold, when I looked again, the woman was bending down and collecting guinips from the trench under OUR gunip tree.
Our guinips—MY guinips!
Well I newa!
I had an immediate adrenaline rush. I had to defend our guinip tree at all cost. Maybe I should have called for back-up…..
I looked quickly around and found a good sized stone and quietly made my way to some bushes, close to the spot where the ‘intruder’ was located and like David with his sling shot, I took careful aim and fired………
I heard a loud scream and so I knew that I had hit my target and so ‘I tek head mek foot!’
It was not more than fifteen minutes later that my mother and father located me. They forced me to follow them to the road side where I was forced to apologize to the woman who had suffered a ‘buss head’ and was already well bandaged up by my mother, who had also offered her a brand new bottle of Canadian oil and then my father proceeded to not spare the rod, right in front of the aggrieved lady.
I gave my tearful apologies and snuck away to cry myself to sleep.
But, you know, that incident taught me a lot. It taught me to be the caring, sharing person that I have grown to be and I truly, truly understand that it does not pay to be selfish.
And so now, I want to admonish all of my readers, not to be selfish. The things that now seem so precious to us, we will eventually lose them, one way or the other.
It is much better for us to share the things that God has LOANED us and to lay up our treasures in heaven.
That’s the way I see it. How do you see it?