In the early 1990s, when American philanthropist Ken Behring, also a real estate billionaire, was on a charitable mission passing through the San Francisco Bay area, he suddenly realized he had lost his wallet.
His assistant thought for a moment and then said anxiously: “Sir, I believe you might have dropped it when walking through the Berkeley slums earlier. What should we do now? Would you like me to go back and search for it?”
Ken Behring replied, “It’s probably too late to go back now. Let’s just sit here and wait for someone good-hearted to find it and contact us.”
So, the billionaire and his assistant waited for two hours in the San Francisco Bay area, but no one contacted them.
Disheartened, the assistant said, “Sir, we shouldn’t waste any more time here. What can we expect from the poor people in the slums? They will never return the wallet to you.”
Ken Behring calmly responded, “It’s fine, I’ll wait here. You can go back to the office and handle things.”
The assistant was confused: “How can I leave you here alone? Your business cards and phone number are always in your wallet, and if anyone wanted to return it, they would have called by now. It would only take a few minutes, but we’ve wasted the whole afternoon waiting. I’m afraid the person who found it has taken all the money inside and has no intention of returning it.”
Ignoring his assistant’s concerns, the billionaire insisted on waiting. From the afternoon until sunset, his phone had not rung.
But just as night began to fall, when the assistant was about to insist on taking him back, the first phone call finally came through. On the other end of the line, someone asked him to come back to a nearby road to retrieve his wallet.
The assistant remained suspicious: “This isn’t some kind of kidnapping or extortion, is it?”
Ken Behring wasn’t concerned by his assistant’s warnings and immediately instructed the driver to go to the agreed location.
When they arrived, a scruffy, dirty boy was waiting for him, holding a thick wallet. The assistant quickly approached, took the wallet, and checked the money inside, surprised to find that nearly all of it was intact. No one had taken a single dollar.
When he handed the wallet back to the billionaire, the boy shyly spoke up: “Sir, could I ask for a little money?”
The assistant thought to himself: “I knew it, I knew something like this would happen…”
Ken Behring asked the boy: “How much do you need?”
The boy hesitantly replied: “I just need one dollar, sir. I found your wallet a while ago, but I didn’t have enough money to make a phone call. I had to ask around, and the only person who lent me money was the owner of a nearby shop so I could use the public phone. Now I need to pay him back.”
Hearing the boy’s explanation, both the philanthropist and the assistant were deeply surprised. He bent down, hugged the boy, and personally led him back to the shop to repay the money, as well as treating the boy to a warm meal as a thank you.
- Valuable lessons often come from kind hearts
From that point on, the philanthropist completely changed his approach to charity. He stopped handing out money to organizations and instead decided to invest in schools for children in the slums. When asked about this decision, he replied firmly:
“We should never judge people by their appearance or material conditions. We cannot assume that everyone living in the slums is greedy and selfish. Anyone, regardless of where they live, deserves respect.
As long as they have a place to live and a chance to prove themselves, we can find upright people with noble hearts and kind souls who are worth being proud of. That is the value I want to invest in and help.”
Perhaps the deepest lesson we carry in our hearts comes from sincere actions and words that come from the bottom of one’s soul. Whether rich or poor, if we have a sincere heart and the willingness to give, we can touch the hearts of others. If everyone were like that, society would certainly become a better place.
