Only Two Bucks

“Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.”

W. Clement Stone


“ONLY TWO BUCKS”

Earlier this week my daughter Sarah, a freshman in college, sent me a text message to my phone. I rarely get emails or texts from her, so I thought it must have been important.

She had texted me, “Dad, I was paying for some paint palettes at the school store and the elderly lady rang me up for one but I had three. I told her I had three and she thanked me, telling me not many people would be so honest.”

I texted her back, “That’s the way to live your life.”

She promptly texted me back, “Yeah, it was only two bucks but I would have felt so bad.”

‘Only two bucks….’ Two bucks doesn’t buy much, today a gallon of gas thank God, and in Sarah’s case two cheap paint palettes. But look at what she would have sold for two bucks…..honesty, integrity, and character. You can’t buy them back for a million bucks, and a guilty conscience is a heavy burden. How something so little can be so big.

The simple things we do in life form the foundation of who we are, and who we are becoming. Ten years from today I’ll be a different person, a better person, and I’ll look back and remember this two dollar lesson.

I hope my daughters do as well.