not sure where to put this...The Touchstone
By: Unknown Author
When the great library of Alexandria burned, as the story goes, one book was saved. But it was not a valuable book;
and so a poor man, who could read a little, bought it for a few coppers.
The book wasn't very interesting, but between its pages there was something very interesting indeed. It was a thin
strip of vellum on which was written the secret of the "Touchstone"!
The touchstone was a small pebble that could turn any common metal into pure gold. The writing explained that it
was lying among thousands and thousands of other pebbles that looked exactly like it. But the secret was this: The
real stone would feel warm, while ordinary pebbles are cold.
So the man sold his few belongings, bought some simple supplies, camped on the seashore, and began testing pebbles.
He knew that if he picked up ordinary pebbles and threw them down again because they were cold, he might pick up
the same pebble hundreds of times. So, when he felt one that was cold, he threw it into the sea. He spent a whole
day doing this but none of them was the touchstone. Yet he went on and on this way. Pick up a pebble. Cold - throw it
into the sea. Pick up another. Throw it into the sea.
The days stretched into weeks and the weeks into months. One day, however, about midafternoon, he picked up a pebble
and it was warm. He threw it into the sea before he realized what he had done. He had formed such a strong
habit of throwing each pebble into the sea that when the one he wanted came along, he still threw it away.
So it is with opportunity. Unless we are vigilant, it's easy to fail to recognize an opportunity when it is in hand,
and it's just as easy to throw it away. 
Wed Sep 30, 2009 8:21 am
