[Market Economy Guide] Challenge and Adventure

Boston Gives Money to Beggars, While New York Is Cold

Which city offers opportunity to the person who chooses it?

There were two men working on a farm. Tired of farm labor, they decided to leave and start new lives.

“I’m going to Boston. I’ll make a fresh start there.”

“I’m going to New York! New York is a prosperous city, so life there must be much better than here.”

The two men headed to the train station. One bought a ticket to Boston, the other a ticket to New York, and they waited together for departure. While waiting, they happened to overhear the people next to them talking.

The Choice Made by the Two Farm Workers

“I hear New Yorkers are famously hard-hearted. Why, they say they even charge money just for giving directions. Isn’t that awful? Tsk, tsk. By contrast, people in Boston are so warm and generous. They’re so kind that even beggars on the street don’t go hungry.”

At that moment, both men changed their minds.

‘New York is really that cold-hearted? That won’t do. I should go to Boston. Even if I can’t find a job there, at least I won’t starve.’

‘You can even make money just by giving directions? Wow, New York really is an incredible city! That settles it. I have to go to New York. If I go there, I’ll find limitless opportunities!’

In the end, the two men exchanged tickets. The man who had planned to go to Boston went to New York, and the man who had planned to go to New York went to Boston in search of a new life. So what happened?

Boston, Where He Lived Even by Begging

The man who went to Boston quickly adapted to life there. Although he did not find a job easily, the people of Boston were so generous with alms that he was able to get by comfortably just by begging.

The man who went to New York, on the other hand, struggled quite a bit. He had arrived in New York excited, imagining it as a city of boundless opportunity, but once he got there, it was nothing more than a bleak city of concrete. Life in the unfamiliar city was extremely hard. Day after day in a huge city where he had no acquaintances and no job was unbearably lonely and difficult. Before long, he began to long desperately for home. As he reminisced about the sky of his hometown, its soil, its woods—everything about it—one thought suddenly came to him.

‘Wait, not everyone living here in New York is a native. There must be many people who came here from other cities, just like me…. Wouldn’t they also be missing their hometowns, just as I am now?’

The man slapped his knee. “That’s it!”

New York, Where Business Is Built on Ideas

He immediately went to a nearby construction site and gathered dirt and leaves. Then he put them in plastic bags, packaged them neatly, gave them the name “potting soil,” and started selling them to people. Before long, his potting soil became a runaway hit, and he made a considerable amount of money.

‘This is still not enough. There must be even greater opportunities in New York.’

In fact, even while selling potting soil, he was always thinking about new opportunities. Then he noticed shop signs covered in thick layers of dust. He soon started a business specializing in cleaning signboards. It was a tremendous success. Before long, he became the respectable owner of a company employing 150 workers, and he even succeeded in expanding the business to other cities. It was an extraordinary achievement, accomplished just 5 years after he first set foot in New York.

Then one day, he had occasion to go to Boston. As he traveled there, he thought of the man who had worked with him on the farm years earlier.

‘I wonder what he looks like now. He must be living well in Boston.’

When he got off at Boston station, a beggar approached him and asked for money. The beggar looked utterly miserable. His old, tattered clothes were grimy, and he gave off a foul odor. Without thinking, the man took out some money from his wallet and held it out—then froze on the spot.

The Two Farmers Meet Again

The beggar recognized him too, and his face stiffened. Yes, that beggar was the very man who had exchanged train tickets with him 5 years earlier!

Life is a series of choices. At life’s crossroads, everyone wrestles with decisions, and depending on the path chosen, each person lives a different life. In the story above, the two train tickets symbolize two different lives. Choosing a train ticket means making a choice in life, and depending on that choice—and on what efforts one makes—each person’s life turns out differently.

The reason some live as the rich and others as beggars is not simply that the world we live in is unfair. It is the result of what kind of dreams each person dreamed, what choices each made, and what efforts each put forth. Do you want to live a life more exceptional and prosperous than others? Then you must never become complacent like the man who chose the ticket to Boston. Like the man who chose the ticket to New York, you must not fear bold adventures and new challenges. Life is a series of choices. At life’s crossroads, everyone wrestles with decisions, and depending on those choices—and on what efforts one makes—life changes accordingly.

■ Please remember

Life is a series of choices. At life’s crossroads, everyone wrestles with decisions, and depending on those choices—and on what efforts one makes—life changes accordingly.

Sung-no Choi

President, Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: [시장경제 길라잡이] 도전과 모험

Author: Sung-no Choi

Date: 2019-06-10

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=column&pn=13&idx=20243