介绍:
Once, a young man went to visit a wise man for some advice because he felt worthless and no longer wished to live. The wise man asked the young man to help him sell a ring. He asked the youth to get a decent price for it, and not to accept anything less than one gold coin.
When the young man arrived at the market, he showed the ring to various traders, but no sooner had they heard that it would sell only in exchange for gold than they completely lost interest. Some of the traders laughed at the young man, and others simply turned away. Only one aged merchant was good enough to explain to him that a gold coin was too high a price to pay for such a ring, and that he was more likely to be offered only copper, or at best, possibly silver.
When he heard these words, the young man became very upset, for he remembered the wise man told him not to accept anything less than one gold coin. Feeling completely depressed by his failure, he returned to see the wise man.
“Master, I was unable to carry out your request,” said the young man. “At best I would have been able to get a couple of silver coins, but you told me not to agree to anything less than one gold coin! But they told me that this ring isn’t worth that much.”
“That is a very important point,” the wise man responded. “Before trying to sell a ring, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to establish how valuable it really is. Who can do that better than a jeweler? Go to visit the jeweler and find out what his price is. Only don’t sell it to him, regardless of what he offers you! Instead, come back to me.”
The young man did as the wise man said. The jeweler examined the ring and said, “Tell your master right now that I can’t give him more than 58 gold coins for it. But if he gives me some time, I will buy the ring for 70 gold coins.”
“70 gold coins!” exclaimed the young man. He laughed, thanked the jeweler and rushed back at full speed to the wise man. When the wise man heard the story from the young man, he told him, “Remember: you are like this ring, precious and unique! Only a real expert can appreciate your true value, so why are you wasting your time wandering through the market and paying attention to the opinion of any person?”
