One day a farmer was walking along a country road with his son Thomas.

“Look,” said the father, “there is a horse shoe. Pick it up and put it in your pocket.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Thomas, “it isn’t worth the trouble to bend down and pick it up.”

His father did not say anything, but he picked up the horse shoe and placed it in his pocket. When they reached the nearby village he sold it to the blacksmith and with the few pennies that he gained he bought some cherries.

Father and son continued on their way. But by now the sun was well up in the sky, there wasn’t a house to be seen, or even a tree where there could be some shade and Thomas was dying of thirst. At a certain point his father happened to drop a cherry on the ground and Thomas dived on it as though it were a piece of gold, and ate it immediately. After a little while his father dropped another cherry and once again his son lost no time in picking up the delicious fruit and putting it in his mouth. And so on it went-the old farmer dropped the cherries and the son picked them up and when Thomas had eaten the lot his father turned to him and said: “My dear son, if you had bent down once to pick up that horse shoe, it would not have been necessary for you to bend down so many times for the cherries. Remember always the famous saying that he who does not worry about the little things will find that he will be unable to do the greater things.”

Small things are best;

grief and unrest

To rank and wealth are given;

But little things on little wings

Bear little souls to heaven.

Short story taken from http://www.panchatantra.chourishi.in/

Image taken from www.flickr.com/photos/31533333@N00/100668296