Room to Spare.

[kodydog]

Recent talk on another post and my own dilemma of working in a cramped two car garage makes me think of this story.


A poor man lived with his wife and six children in a very small one-room house. They
were always getting in each other's way and there was so little space they could hardly
breathe!

Finally the man could stand it no more. He talked to his wife and asked her what to do.
"Go see the rabbi," she told him, and after arguing a while, he went.

The rabbi greeted him and said, "I see something is troubling you. Whatever it is, you can
tell me."
And so the poor man told the rabbi how miserable things were at home with him, his
wife, and the six children all eating and living and sleeping in one room. The poor man
told the rabbi, "We're even starting to yell and fight with each other. Life couldn't be
worse."

The rabbi thought very deeply about the poor man's problem. Then he said, "Do exactly
as I tell you and things will get better. Do you promise?"
"I promise," the poor man said.
The rabbi then asked the poor man a strange question. "Do you own any animals?"
"Yes," he said. "I have one cow, one goat, and some chickens."
"Good," the rabbi said. "When you get home, take all the animals into your house to live
with you."

The poor man was astonished to hear this advice from the rabbi, but he had promised to
do exactly what the rabbi said. So he went home and took all the farm animals into the
tiny one-room house.

The next day the poor man ran back to see the rabbi. "What have you done to me,
Rabbi?" he cried. "It's awful. I did what you told me and the animals are all over the
house! Rabbi, help me!"
The rabbi listened and said calmly, "Now go home and take the chickens back outside."

The poor man did as the rabbi said, but hurried back again the next day. "The chickens
are gone, but Rabbi, the goat!" he moaned. "The goat is smashing up all the furniture and
eating everything in sight!"
The good rabbi said, "Go home and remove the goat and may God bless you."

So the poor man went home and took the goat outside. But he ran back again to see the
rabbi, crying and wailing. "What a nightmare you have brought to my house, Rabbi! With
the cow it's like living in a stable! Can human beings live with an animal like this?"
The rabbi said sweetly, "My friend, you are right. May God bless you. Go home now and
take the cow out of your house." And the poor man went quickly home and took the cow
out of the house.

The next day he came running back to the rabbi again. "O Rabbi," he said with a big
smile on his face, "we have such a good life now. The animals are all out of the house.
The house is so quiet and we've got room to spare! What a joy!"

[gene]

I had a headache once. I got a hammer and smashed my thumb with it. My headache went away.  :)

I think this story may be from Victor Frankel:

At a WW2 Nazi concentration camp, the prisoners came back to their dorm room after a long day of slave labor. They were given a bowl of what was said to be cabbage soup. Whatever it was that was floating in the luke warm water did not look like cabbage. As the prisoners sat down to eat, one Jewish prisoner bowed his head to pray. Another Jewish prisoner laughed and started to mock him. What do you have to pray for? We have had everything taken from us. Our families have been killed. We saw the guards kill people today for no reason. The guards could come in here at any moment and kill us for no reason. What do you have to be thankful for?

The man raised his head and said, "I am thankful that I am not like the guards."

gene