Heart2Heart SHARING

A seasoned old miner digs deep into the earth in search of the treasure he knows is there somewhere. For months and years he digs, transports the rocks out of the mine and sifts through them. Suddenly one day as he is outside the mine sifting the rocks from the ore and there it is; the gold he had been working so hard to find.

He immediately redoubles his efforts and works harder than he ever has in his life to get more of his life’s dream out of the mine and into his safe. He works 14, 16 even 18 hours per day picking away at the rock, transporting carts full of rocks out to the creek where he sifts and sifts and keeps finding more and more gold. All he sees is the color, for in his mind, that is all that mattered.

Since he is all alone, no one is around to tell him how horrible he looks. He is aging quickly because of the long hours, hard work, lack of sleep and improper meals. Even if someone was there to tell him of his condition, he wouldn’t listen to them for he is on a mission, and nothing is going to stop him.

At some point he does go into town to get supplies. He doesn’t breathe a word to anyone about his discovery lest they come steal it. He does, however, send a telegram to his two brothers telling them of his “find” and urging them to sell all they owned and come join him. Within a few months, the man’s brothers do indeed show up. They had sold their homes, their businesses and their belongings to pay for the trip to the “promised land.” One had even left his wife and deserted his family to pursue his dream of becoming filthy rich.

The three brothers all worked harder and harder to get more and more of their treasure out of the earth before others found out. They decided they needed more help so they telegraphed cousins and other relatives who in turn sell all they owned and made the trip to the mine. Two of them got caught in a terrible snow storm and perished in the mountains. Another was attacked by savages and perished on the way to “paradise.”

Finally, the old man who had started the whole adventure decided it was time to “cash in” his treasure. He loaded his mule up with bags upon bags of the precious gold. He left a hero for everyone knew he would return with so much wealth, he would spend the rest of his days traveling the world and living in the lap of luxury.

Sometime later, the man did return from his trip. Whereas he left glowing with excitement and anticipation of the upcoming windfall of his efforts; he returned a haggard old man who had just come off a three day drinking binge. He looked as if he had aged fifty years in the short time he was gone. There was no smile, no excitement and no joy. He was a beaten down, defeated and tired old man whose dejected eyes displayed to all his inner pain.

As the gang gathered around the fire to hear the news, there was nothing to be heard but cries of pain, anger and horror. The bags were worthless, they were told, for instead of being full of gold, they were full of pyrite—fool’s gold. There was great weeping and gnashing of teeth that night as one after another of the men came face to face with the realization they had thrown their lives away in pursuit of a lie. Each one had to come to grips with the reality that they had nothing to show for all their hard work except failure.

Within a day the camp was closed down. Two of the men went into the wilderness and shot themselves. Two more took all the money they had left and wasted it all in town on drinking and other entertainment. One even died in a drunken brawl that ended in shots being fired. The rest of the men headed “home” wherever that was, and whatever was left of it. The old man died within a month. His cause of death; a broken heart.

A short time later, a few men stumbled upon the site and decided to go back into the mine and see if there might be anything of value in there. They chipped away and within a few weeks found a vein of pure gold in the walls of the mine. They worked hard and shortly thereafter took a wagon of ore to town where they redeemed it for more cash than most people would ever see in ten lifetimes. They had indeed found the vein of real gold that many times lies right around the corner from pyrite. If the original men had dug just a little deeper—the real gold would have been theirs. Instead, they quit and forfeited their fortune to others.

The 1849 gold rush in California and the later one in Alaska produced countless stories such as the one above. Men sold their lives out to the pursuit of wealth. They forsook family, jobs and friends to look for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. They risked life and limb to make the harrowing journey across a wild continent to get to the mountains of California where they would become millionaires. A few succeeded in their quest, the majority failed or only found moderate success. Most of these people lost everything in their foolish quest to find quick wealth.

People today spend money they do not have on lottery tickets and other forms of legalized gambling. People today invest their entire life’s savings in schemes that are supposed to bring them untold immediate fortunes. People today still run across the country in search of the pot of gold hidden in the hills. Most, if not all, find nothing but pyrite, and end up fools with pockets of fool’s gold.

Take from this story whatever lesson best suits your needs, for there are too many “morals” to this story to go into each one. The main point is simply that before risking everything you have in life; make sure the treasure you seek is really there to begin with and that it is worth sacrificing everything in life to find. If you do decide to “go for it”, then make sure you stick with it to the end. You never know if the pyrite is only “fool’s gold” or the marker of a genuine vein of gold that sits around the next bend.