What do you feel about people who look different from you? Some may be taller and some may be shorter. Other may be thinner of fatter. Do you think that those who are different from you are better than you? Or do you feel that they are as good as you are? Being different does not make better or worse than others.

Think

The pigeons and the falcon

Nannesab was the prime minister of the Persia. One day while walking through the royal courtyard he saw falcon. Nannesab had never seen a falcon before. He was surprised because this bird looked very different from the pigeons in the royal court. The falcon’s claws were big, sharp and curved. Its wings were much longer and darker than pigeon’s beak.

`Oh! Dear’, Thought nannesab, `Why is this bird so different? I must make it look like others’. So he took a knife and trimmed the flacon’s claws till they were small like pigeon’s. Then he clipped the large wings. He also scraped the beak until it was blunt and no longer curved.

Nannesab was happy. `Ah! Now you look ore like the others,’ he said.

Nannesab was very pleased with his work. But do you think the poor falcon was happy? He could not tear meat with out sharp claws and curved beak. He could only peak the grain and remained hungry all the time. He became thin and weak and could not even fly as high as he did before.

He suffered because no one allowed him to be a falcon. He was not allowed to be who he really was.

Understand

Sometimes, we too are like nannesab. When we see that someone is different from us we do not understand him. We many want to change him so that he becomes more like us. When we do this, we miss the real beauty of that person. We also created bad feelings between that person and ourselves.

People are different from each other. Different people have different colored skin. Some are with; some are black, some brown and others yellow. In the same way, some people and fat, others thin, some stammer, others have funny voices, and some are small and others big. We might know someone who cannot walk properly, others who cannot speak, see or hear.

It is important to understand that each person is different. We are different from others and others are different from us. We must respect the differences.