CONTENTMENT

I found this wonderful little story at Sarah's fantastic blog "A bend in the Road" ( look down the side bar for a link) and thought I would share it :)

Even if you sleep in a thousand mat room, you can only sleep on one mat. Japanese Proverb

A businessman bought popcorn from an old street vendor each day after lunch. He once arrived to find the peddler closing up his stand at noon.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.A smile wrinkled the seller's leathery face.

"By no means. All is well."

"Then why are closing your popcorn stand?"

"So I can go to my house, sit on my porch, and sip tea with my wife."

The man of commerce objected. "But the day is still young. You can still sell."

"No need to," the stand owner replied. "I've made enough money for today."

"Enough? Absurd. You should keep working."

The spry old man stopped and stared at his well-dressed visitor.

"And why should I keep working?"

"To sell more popcorn."

"And why sell more popcorn?"

"Because the more popcorn you sell, the more money you make. The more money you make, the richer you are. The richer you are, the more popcorn stands you can buy. The more popcorn stands you buy, the more peddlers sell your product, and the richer you become. And when you have enough, you can stop working, sell you popcorn stands, stay home, and sit on the porch with your wife and drink tea."

The popcorn man smiled. "I can do that today. I guess I have enough."

From 'Cure for the Common Life' by Max Lucado.