Why Am I Here?

“Why am I here?” I asked the wise man who sat beneath the tree. “The answer seems unclear to me and difficult to see.” “Why do you seem so content to sit beneath this tree?” “To be old and spent and broken down seems to be the key.” “Young man,” he said, ”It is not what you see, but do not see in me.” “My life,” he said, “ was a furrowed path of deep and dark regret. I broke hearts and took away all that I could get. And then one day I saw a tear that I could not forget. A compassionate heart was born that day and today I have it yet." “I am sure you saw a thousand tears,” I said, “ if you were anyway like me.” “What would be the difference, that a single tear could be?” Could a tear warm a cold and callous heart, like the one I have in me?” What secret did that tear unlock, and why was it the key?” “You see,” my friend, “I had a dream that chilled me to the bone. I felt the pain that I had caused, I shivered and began to moan. For the first time in my life I felt totally alone. The tear I saw that changed my life, that tear it was my own.’’