Jack and Jill

Just to share a financial story about Jack and Jill.


Jack and Jill were providing a service to their village by fetching pails of water from the hill to the villagers. They were paid based on each pail of water fetched to the villagers.

After fetching the water for 1 year, Jill thinks of a idea. The idea is to make a pipe from the hill to the village, so that they no longer had to go up and down the hill any more. After hearing Jill's idea, Jack shouted "What a stupid idea, how are you going to build a pipe from the hill to the village. Since you are so free, why not go and fetch a few more pails of water to earn more. Stop day dreaming and get back to work"

Jill ignored Jack comments and started to think of how to build the pipe. She spent one year to figure out on how to build a pipe from the hill to the village. She spent another one year to build the pipe. In these two years, she earned 50% less than Jack, due to the commitment on learning and building the pipe. Jack always mocked her as a crazy girl in the village during the two years.

After the completion of the pipe, Jack was still going up and down the hill to fetch water. Jill however has a better life now. She just needed to turned on the pipe in the village to fill up water for the villagers. Also she can now charge less than Jack.

The villagers were very happy and satisfied with Jill's service as it is fast and efficient. More villagers are willing to get the water from Jill rather than Jack as they do not want to wait and is cheaper. Sooner or later, Jack was workless as no villagers want to get water from him. He regretted what he said to Jill in the past few years.

The morale of the story:
1) Have a open heart when someone share a idea with you. Do not shoot down their ideas or mock anyone based on your ignorance. There is a saying in one of the Zen stories, "You must empty your own cup first, before other people can fill up the cup for you."

2) If you keep doing the same thing without any improvement or better services, sooner or later you will be replaced. There is no such thing as stable job now.

3) If you failed to plan now, you plan to fail in the future.

4) Building a pipe from the hill to the village is the same as building up your assets. The more assets you have, the higher your passive income will be.

Purpose of this story:

Many people are afraid of doing something different from the majority. When someone want to try out new thing, they are often mocked or discouragement by the majority due to their ignorance. My stand is do not be afraid of trying out new things.