Happiness In Working Together

Two scientists were extremely good friends. They would always work together to discover something new. One particular day, one of the scientists was absent, and so the other scientist was working alone. On that day he discovered something very great. He was overjoyed!

The following day, the man who had made the discovery said to his friend, "Look, look, what I have discovered! I have discovered something that will burn away everything. As soon as you touch it, it will burn continuously."

The second scientist was very upset and very jealous. On the one day that he was sick and did not come to work, the other scientist had to discover something so great all by himself! The second one said, "I am so happy that you have found this." But in his heart of hearts, he was full of jealousy.

After some time, the same scientist said, "I am so happy. But can you answer one question for me? Where will you keep your discovery? It burns away everything. If we keep it inside something, will it not burn away the container? Where will we keep it?"

The other scientist got upset. "What are you saying?" he asked.

The jealous friend said, "You are so happy because you have discovered something all by yourself. I am now very unhappy and very miserable that you have discovered it all by yourself. You could have waited just one day for me. Now you have increased my jealousy like anything!"

The other man said, "But we are friends! We are one! I would have been happy if you had discovered the same thing all by yourself."

The jealous colleague said, "I am not so sure of that! In the future, I want us to do everything together. If you do something all by yourself, I will feel jealous and then I will find fault with you. With your new discovery, for example, you must find a container where we will be able to keep it; otherwise it will burn away everything.

"Because we have been working together for years, always we have to work together. Otherwise, I will feel miserable, because you will be known as the inventor and I will not be known at all. Let us work together and discover everything together. Then we shall both be happy."