In a small village there lived two friends, Mei and Doun. Growing up, they both witnessed the death of members of their village to minor ailments due to the lack of medical institution. And so, determined to change the narrative, they both pledged that when they grow up they would save lives by establishing a health center in the village.

Truly, Mei and Doun both choose to study medicine. And several years later, after their graduation from medical school, they both made good their promise by returning to the village where they partnered together and set up a clinic. There, they attended to the medical needs of the villagers.

By their decision in setting up a clinic, the villagers got a respite from spending huge sums of money to go for medical trips in the nearby city. Also, the mortality rate in the village declined sharply as Mei and Doun offered their professional services at reduced charges to the villagers.

Things were so good until one fateful day when an incident that occurred pitted the two friends against each other. Attempts by some persons to assuage their grievances failed to yield any positive results and their relationship deteriorated badly. Unable to manage the situation, Mei and Doun both went their separate ways.

It did not end there. While Mei and Doun each set up their own separate clinic, because of the bitterness they had developed for each other. a fierce competition took shape between the two friends-turned-rival as each tried fiercely to outdo the other with the sole intent to run the other aground.

Finally, when Mei could no longer cope with shouldering the costs of running his own clinic, he threw in the towel and relocated out of the village to an undisclosed location in the city. With this, Doun was left as the only medical care provider. He considered himself as the new champion at the turn of event. Left with no one to compete with him for his services, he soon became very popular and started to make more money.

One fateful day, Doun went on a visit to the city to honour a medical programme he was invited as the guest speaker. On the second day of the programme, he received a distress call that his only daughter who went on an errand for her mother had a serious accident and that he should come home immediately to attend to her deteriorating situation as there were no qualified personnel at the clinic that could attend to her. 

On receiving the report of the incident, Doun hurriedly left for home. But sadly, before his arrival, his daughter who had lost so much blood died of Anemia from the deep cut she had sustained in her leg during the incident.

It was then that it dawned on Doun that his quarrel with Mei, arising from their misunderstanding, had cost him the life of his only daughter. He instantly recalled that when both of them were managing their first established clinic, they took turns to attend to functions outside the village peradventure an emergency situation should occur. He knew that if that had been the case, his daughter would not have died as one of them would have been around to attend to her.

Filled with regret, Doun searched for Mei, his former partner, in an attempt to make amends and if possible, for both of them to put aside their grievances for the sake of saving innocent lives in the future and to continue from where they stopped.

AFTERWORD: What has this story taught you? We hope the message it portends to send sinks in. No matter what our ambitions are, our selfishness should not make us blind to reality. If you think that pulling others down will make you any more successful and happy, you better think twice.

#mystorydiscourse

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