Things Don't Appear As What You See
Author: Abel Cheng

The light bulb at the staircase of my house was blown off for quite some time. I didn't change it because I needed to get a ladder first to reach for the light.

Finally, I got myself a ladder the other day. I removed the burnt bulb from the socket. But the bulb was broken into two. Thinking of showing the watt was all I needed to buy a new bulb, I kept only the glass portion of the bulb and I threw away the metal connector at the bottom.

When I reached the shop to get a new bulb, the shop owner asked me how big the connector was. I was stunned as I didn't take note of the size of the metal connector. I told the shop owner that let me try with the small one first.

When I went home, I tried to install the bulb but the socket was too big for the new bulb.

Feeling frustrated, I went back to the shop and asked for an exchange. The shop owner re-assured me that the size must be correct this time as there were only two sizes for light bulb of my kind.

Here again, when I reached home, I climbed up the ladder and tried to fix the light. To my surprise again, the bulb is too big for my socket. I said to myself this couldn't be as the shop owner said one of the two sizes should fit my socket. I had tried all the two.

The other reason I could think of was the shop owner was trying to be irresponsible with me. I was ready to get my refund if this was true. Feeling cheated.

For the third time, I went back to the shop again and told the owner that I couldn't fix my light with all the two sizes he had.

He said it was impossible. And asked me to try again. I couldn't believe that I took so long to fix a light bulb. "What a joke." I told myself.

For the last time, I went home and try to fix the light again. True enough, the socket was too small for the new light bulb.

But this time I got an idea. I climbed higher to have a look into the socket and I found out the reason why I didn't manage to fix the light bulb.

After having looked at the inner side of the socket, I suddenly noticed that the real socket for the light bulb was residing in a bigger outer plastic socket. Which means the 'real' size for the socket is smaller than it appears. All the while, I was thinking the size of the socket was a big as the outer plastic socket.

Then only I realized that the light bulb that I should be using was the one with smaller size.

What an experience for changing a simple light bulb! But I learned something from this experience.

I have learned that things don't appear as what and how we see them. A lot of things are perceived wrongly because of our ignorance and lack of wisdom.

It's exactly what happened to me for the bulb changing experience. Thinking of the light bulb should be the larger size but in fact when I took the trouble to look deeper, it turned out to be otherwise.

Life is the same as well. Don't look at things on the surface, look deeper. And you have more potential in you than what you think you have.








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Abel Cheng offers small and medium enterprises exclusive global profits insider tips in his free publication, Abel Cheng's Business Diary. Officiate your subscription now at http://www.abelcheng.com/diary.html. And get free personal email coaching.

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