The White Elephant

I have heard of a story of a Siam King. Siam was powerful that time, so the neighboring countries have to pay tribute to Siam. Siam have options either they can attack the disobedient neighbors, or they sometimes give present to them - A White Elephant.

This Siam King once gave a White Elephant to his neighbor country, who he was not satisfied with, but without a strong reason to evade them. White Elephant was Siam's national treasure kind of creature, it was so rare and valuable, only to be owned by King, but worse, it cost you more to take care of it. 

Receiving the White Elephant as a gesture of friendliness from Siam King, this neighbor hasto spend enormous amount of resource to take good care of it, to keep it well and alive. If it dies, that will be an act of disrespectful and will give reason to Siam King to attack them. So, it had cost pain to them.

So you see, present is not always good, some present/gift is only meant for people who can afford them. Giving them thing that are too much for them to have it, it will only cost them pain.

Imagine a poor family of 8 kids, they live happily even with simple meal of rice plus eggs with soy sauce everyday. That's all they can afford daily, and yet, the kids are satisfied with the food, as they have not tasted fish, meat before. One day, a man sponsored them with fishes and meat daily for some reason. These are delicious meal for this family, they have tasted it. 3 months later, the free supply stopped. Guess what? Going back to rice and eggs, do you think they can still be happy as before?

Spend your money fast!

I am a Chinese, and you know Chinese in the east are well known for how calculative they (we) are in spending money... It is both side of good and bad, being stingy and being save. 

Years back, I was still a typical calculative Chinese. I still wore my old shoes despite they are in bad condition; I reluctant to replaced my tyres although they have worn out. I proudly claimed myself as 'a savy person'. But I was wrong. Not changing a new pair of shoes might bruise my toes and causing lost of working hour (money); Not replacing my tyres might cause accident and causing lost of time and money and even life.

Over the years, I have changed. If I must need to buy something, I will do it fast, because I can avoid unnecessary hassle and lost. The money need to be spent anyway, how much interest can you get from the bank?

I told my brother the other day, why still not change his iPhone 6 although he can afford it easily? He said it is still usable, just poorly performed. I told him, was he waiting the phone to die then only willing to get the new one? And lost all the content? (He doesn't do back up). He bought a new one after 3 days.

So, spend on the necessity fast if it is something you must buy, isn't it nice to be able to scroll on a lag-free iPhone earlier?