A long time ago, there was a 30-year-old man with unkempt hair and ragged clothes named “Gilbert”. He used to be well off and had his own family until he lost everything and became homeless one year ago.
A few months before he became homeless, he was fired from his job due to an economic recession. After that, his life went downhill. While desperately searching for a job, he spent much of his savings on his family.
Despite his attempts to find a job, all of his job applications had been turned down. Gilbert soon became stressed and started to drink more frequently. He became more physically violent and lashed out towards his wife and started to spend his remaining savings on alcohol.
Due to the change in his behavior and habits, Gilbert lost his family and his house. With no one else to ask for help from, he spent all of his remaining money on alcohol. After he had no money left to buy alcohol, he decided to steal in order to meet the demands of his alcohol addiction. In a short period of time, he moved on from petty theft to breaking into houses and armed robbery attempts. After several times of successfully outrunning the police, he became conceited and overestimated his abilities. Due to this, he was caught one day in a botched robbery attempt.
A few years later, Gilbert was finally released from prison, but he had not yet turned over a new leaf. He continued to break into houses and robbing them. Unexpectedly for him, he met someone he knew on his third break-in. He saw an elderly old man sitting tiredly on the sofa. Gilbert recognized this man as his ex-senior supervisor, Mr. Tomhunk, who retired a few years before he had gotten fired.
Before Gilbert said or did anything, Mr. Tomhunk weakly asked, “Gilbert, is that you? What had happened to you to cause you to turn out this way?”. Gilbert was surprised that Mr. Tomhunk still remembered him even after a lot of years had passed. Seeing that Gilbert remained silent, Mr. Tomhunk continued, “I know things are rough for you right now, but I am sure you have other options. You still have your family to turn to, right?”
Hearing this, Gibert gave a snort and said, “Ha! Family? I’ve lost contact with them years ago.”
However, seeing someone he had recognized, Gilbert broke down and revealed to Mr. Tomhunk the events that took place since he was fired. Mr. Tomhunk counseled him and told him to turn himself in to the police. He also advised that after his prison sentence, Gilbert should look for Mr. Tomhunk and his family for help.
Hearing that Mr. Tomhunk still forgave him for his crimes, Gilbert agreed and did exactly what Mr. Tomhunk had told him. Many years passed since Gilbert’s second release and he fully turned over a new leaf and successfully started a new life of his own.
Moral: Push through difficult obstacles in life without resorting to destructive behaviors.
There are always second chances
