Time You Lose Your Ego

A lady in a faded grey dress and her husband, dressed in a home-spun suit walked in timidly without an appointment into the office of Harvard University's president.

The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business in Harvard and probably didn't deserve to be there.

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"We want to see the president," the man said softly.

"He'll be busy all day," the secretary snapped.

"We'll wait."

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For hours, the secretary ignored them, hoping they would become discouraged and go home.

They didn't and the secretary grew frustrated so she decided to call the President.

"Maybe if you'll talk to them for awhile, they'll leave." said the secretary.

The president, stern faced and with dignity, strutted towards the couple.

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The lady told him

"We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He loved it here. But he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus."

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The president wasn't touched.

Gruffly, he said,

"Madam, we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetary."

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"Oh no, we don't want to build a statue. We thought we would give a building to Harvard."

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Looking at the gingham dress and the home-spun suit,

he exclaimed

"A building! Do you have any idea how much that costs? We have over 7 and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard."

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For a moment the lady was silent.

The president was pleased.

The lady turned to her husband and said quietly,

"Is that all it costs to start a university? We don't we start our own?"

Her husband nodded.

The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment.

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Mr. and Mrs Leland Stanford got up and walked away, travelling to Palo Alto, California where they established the university that bears their name:

Stanford University

A memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.

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Most of the time, we judge people by their outer appearance, which can be misleading.

And in this impression,

we often treat people badly thinking that they could do nothing for us.

Thus, we tend to lose our potential good friends.

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In our life,

we seldom get people with whom we want to share and grow with.

But because of ego,

we lose them.

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Small people talk about others.

Average people talk about things.

Great people talk about ideas.