My grandfather used to tell us many stories that we learned many lessons from them. Among the stories I remember, there was a beautiful one that stuck in my memory about man's avidity. 

Once Upon a time, there was a kind man who sold milk and he was selling it of good quality, not adulterated, and he had gained many customers, for he was known by his honesty and good behavior, he was even the most known among all the other sellers in the market .

However, things did not go well all the time, greed is the villain characteristic that seduces man and pushes him to seek richness even on the behalf of the other's health. This is what happened to our famous seller. 

One day, our man decided to increase his profit, so he mixed half the milk with water. As usual, he went to the market and sold the diluted milk. His customers did not realize neither the cheating man nor diluted milk,  because they trusted him for long years . They have been dealing with him for a long time, therefore, trust was settled between them. 

The man earned twice the profit and was happy with his new gain. On his way home, he felt exhausted, so he decided to rest a little under the shade of a tree in front of the river. Because of tire, the man took a little nap. Meanwhile, a monkey came down from the tree and stole the bag of money, at that moment, the seller woke up and began to shout seeing his purse stolen. He shouted and begged the monkey to return the purse of money back  to him, but no avail . What came next was a big shock for the seller, because the monkey  opened the purse and began to throw one piece to the seller and another in the river,  he continued doing so until the bag emptied of money.

Then the seller collected the money that the monkey threw to him. He was stunned when he counted the pieces, for the money that the monkey threw to him was worth the price of the unadulterated milk!!! He laughed so much and hummed to himself, stating : “The money of milk is for milk  and the money of water is for water.”

Since that day, the seller made a vow to himself that he would never cheat on his customers, deciding not to mix milk with water.

This was a great lesson for any seller who cheats on people through adultering goods in order to get more benefits. Honesty must be the first feature in dealings especially for the sellers who might play tricks with the products and cause damage or infliction to their customers. 

Greed is a human nature, and desire for wealth drives us, besides, fear of poverty is another reason that blinds people and urge them to cheat in many different ways . Nowadays, many sellers or merchants cheat on their customers to earn more money, some of them may use ways susceptible to harm people's health or sometimes may take lives.

We may be consumed by greed in certain circumstances, unconscious of the bad consequences which turn to be fatal sometimes and ruin everything. Cheating always ends by being revealed, as Abraham Lincoln said : 

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time.

The morality of this story emphasized that what is taken unjustly is surely wasted without the slightest bit, like the famous proverb says : grasp all, lose all.

Thanks for taking time to read.