It is told that in a distant kingdom, for a long time people lived happily under the rule of a good king. In his reign, the kingdom was prosperous and the people felt comfortable and satisfied. There was no hungry or needy person in his time, because the king was always thinking of his people and trying to please them.
One time, the king decided to take a tour of his kingdom and visit historical places and distant places of worship. Because he was a just ruler who felt for the people, he decided to travel on foot so that he could interact with the people and see them and be seen by them up close.
When the king reached the remote areas of his kingdom and spoke with their inhabitants, they were very happy to meet him. What made them happiest was that their king was a man with a heart of gold. Throughout his tour, the king kept asking about the condition of the subjects and what they lacked.
After several weeks had passed, the king returned to his palace, very happy because he had visited many pilgrimage centers and saw his people living a prosperous life and was proud of them. But despite all that happiness, there was one thing that pained the king on that journey.
For he had unbearable pain in his feet, because this journey was his first journey on foot for a long distance. The king complained to his ministers that the roads were not comfortable for travel, and they were full of stones, which caused his feet to suffer and feel pain.
The king felt compassion for his people regarding the roughness of the roads, so he asked some of his servants to cover all the roads in the country with leather, so that his people could walk comfortably. The king’s ministers were surprised by this, for this meant that many cows would be slaughtered to obtain a large amount of leather, and this would cost the kingdom a large amount of money.
One of the wise ministers suggested to the king another idea that could be an alternative to covering the roads with leather, which was that the king should wear a piece of leather on his feet, covering and protecting them from the roughness of the roads.
The king was very surprised by the wise minister’s suggestion, praised his wisdom, and ordered a pair of leather shoes to be made for himself. He generalized the order to include all his citizens and made them wear those leather shoes. The lesson of this story is: instead of trying to change the world, let us first try to change ourselves, because this is much easier and will eventually lead us to change the world as a whole.