Once there was a man who wanted to check out the after-life. He'd heard all the stuff about Heaven and Hell and wanted to see what both were really like.
After all, he thought, if I live a good life here on Earth and I get to the afterlife only to find that its all been a con, I'm going to be upset to say the least
especially after all the great food he refused to eat because he thought it must be wrong to be so gluttonous. But if it didn't matter, he may as well enjoy himself and eat as much as he could.
So he booked a guided tour of Heaven and Hell for a day.
First his guide took him to the Gates of Hell. As he looked through the gates he could see the most wonderful food piled high on massive tables as high as the eye could see.
It looked great, so he wandered through the gates with his guide. On and on they walked and all the while they were surrounded on all sides by piles of the most wonderful food imaginable. This seemed more like 'Heaven' than 'Hell'.
WOW! Hell's definitely the place for me he told his guide..
All the food I can eat for eternity.. what could be wrong with that? It's my dream!
His guide said nothing. However, as they walked into a massive hall with a table piled high with food as long as the eye could see he noticed that all the people sitting around the table were thin and weak.. people with little or no flesh left on their bones. All moaning in agony at being hungry for the whole of eternity.
The man turned to his guide, "I don't understand, there is all this food and yet these poor souls are starved". "How can this be?!"
"Look more closely" replied his guide. "You'll see why soon enough.."
As they got nearer the man noticed that all the people seemed to be holding very long chopsticks. As the man looked on he saw how none of them could eat the food.
They could pick the food up with their long chopsticks, but couldn't get it round into their mouths.
On seeing this he decided that now was the time to take the tour of Heaven. As he wandered through the Pearly Gates with his guide he was amazed that everything looked the same.
Huge piles of food everywhere as far as the eye could see. On and on they walked untill, as in Hell, they came to another large hall with a table many miles long. Once again the table was full of food.
Once again the man noticed that the people seemed to be holding very long chopsticks, only this time these people were all healthy, happy and well fed.
"But I don't understand.." the man asked his guide. "How come everyone here is happy and healthy while everyone in hell is starving..?"
His guide looked at him and said, "The difference is simply in the state of mind those in heaven have compared to those in hell".
"Look more closely.."
The man did, untill he quickly realised what was happening. In Heaven each person would use their 10 foot chopsticks to pick up some food and feed the person opposite from them. In return, the person opposite would do the same back.
In hell the people are afraid of someone pinching their food, so they are selfishly trying to use their own chopsticks to feed themselves. Thats why they go hungry.
The moral of this story if you hadn't worked it out for yourself, is we can only really gain by helping each other. You can have everything in life you want, if you just help others get what they want as well.
You feed me by giving me work, and in return I feed you a fantastic website which will hopefully bring you great success; maybe that success is measured in more business or perhaps in getting your message out to the world. Maybe the success is measured by something completely different.
Either way, in return you're feeding me by giving recommendations and potentially more work. It's a mutually beneficial relationship.
This is one of the big problems I've noticed working Freelance within this industry and that's the lack of trust. Too often I hear and see businesses / individuals getting
ripped off by greedy self acclaimed web experts that are just trying to make a quick buck, and then I see hard working web developers who have put blood, sweat and tears into a project just to have the client try to dodge paying. The sad thing in reality is this industry is not the only one to suffer with this.
If everyone just helped each other this world would certainly be a better place and we'd all certainly be better off for it. My hope is that I can breach that gap with you and create a long lasting mutually beneficial relationship where both of us can be successful.