The Story of the Father and Son and their Carabao

One day a man who lived in the outskirts of the Cebu province was going to market with his son and his carabao. They met a couple on the way.

“Why walk when you have a carabao to ride?” called out the husband, “seat the boy on the carabao.”

“I would like that,” said the boy, “help me up, father.” And the father did that willingly.

Soon they met another couple in the sari-sari store. “How shameful of you!” cried the woman to the boy, “Let your father ride; won’t he be tired?”

So, the boy got down and the father rode the carabao. Again they marched on.

“Poor boy,” said the next person they met, “why should the sluggish father ride while his son is walking?”

So, the boy got onto the carabao, too. As they went on, they met some foreign travellers. “How cruel of them! They are up to kill the poor carabao,” cried one of the travellers.

Hearing this, the father and the son got down. Now they decided to carry the carabao on their shoulders. As they did so, the travellers broke into laughter.

The laughter frightened the carabao. It broke free and ran away.

Moral of the Story: You cannot please everyone.

(Source: http://www.philstar.com:8080/cebu-lifestyle/2014/06/01/1329764/man-and-his-carabao)
(Original: http://www.kidsgen.com/moral_stories/you_cannot_please_everyone.htm) 

Sharing my thoughts:

Everyone will have their own opinions about what they see in you. 

We live in a society where behavior is mostly dictated by the media. We try to conform on what we see on TV or what we see in social media (e.g. facebook) without realizing whether our actions are aligned to our values and principles in life.

No matter what you do or how you do it, people will have something to say about it. Some are bad and some will be good. But the bottom line is people will always have things to say. It's up to you if you let it affect you or not. You cannot please everybody however you can please yourself.

So get out and enjoy life to the fullest. Live each day like it's your last day but make sure that you do things you want to do in life and not from the expectations of other people and be smart with your decisions.  What's important is you're happy and you don't step on someone else's toes in whatever you do. 

We can associate this to investing and peer pressure in a way that even we know how important investing is to better our financial standing in life and yet not even the majority does it. 

Majority of our friends and families wouldn't understand us if we take action and invest for our future. But as long as we know that what we are doing is right and we don't harm other people in what we do, then that's all that matters. We don't have to be bothered with what other people would say about us. 

We don't please anyone. We only please ourselves.