One day the padishah drove past the garden and saw an old man behind the fence planting a peach tree. “Hey, old man,” the padishah turned to the gardener, “your life is coming to an end, you will no longer see the fruits of this tree, so why bother?.. Well, I know, I know, you will say: “Our ancestors worked for us, and we must work for our descendants.” But tell me, is there any point in thinking about the past, which has gone into darkness, and about the future, which has not yet emerged from the darkness? After all, only the present belongs to us.
- You, the ruler, should understand the gardener! - answered the old man. “You don’t want to remember the past, which means your past is such that it would be better not to have it at all.” You don't want to think about the future, which means you're afraid of it. So I don’t envy your present!
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru