our dreams...

A wise man was known to be writing a book, but the years went by and he was still a long way from reaching the last page. One day, when he was very old, a young man asked him if he was not impatient to see it completed.

The old man smiled. "All my life it has been my ambition to finish writing my book, but an ambition realised is like a snowflake in a warm hand. Take away my dream and what would I have left?"

When he died, his pen was still in his hand, the unfinished manuscrpt in front of him. It is said he was smiling happily.

If the story has a moral, it is this: don't take away people's hopes and dreams. Often they are the most precious and best-loved things in their lives.