The value of a life changing book

This is a story featured in Paulo Coelho’s book titled 'Like the flowing river.'

**Cassan Said Amer tells the story of a lecturer who began a seminar by holding up a twenty-dollar bill and asking: ‘Who would like this twenty-dollar bill?’
Several hands went up, but the lecturer said: ‘Before I give it to you, I have to do something.’ He screwed it up into a ball and said: ‘Who still wants this bill?’
The hands went up again.
‘And what if I do this to it?’
He threw the crumpled bill at the wall, dropped it on the floor, insulted it, trampled on it, and once more showed them the bill – now all creased and dirty. He repeated the question, and the hands stayed up.
‘Never forget this scene,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter what I do to this money. It is still a twenty dollar-bill. So often in our lives, we are crumpled, trampled, ill-treated, insulted, and yet, despite all that, we are still worth the same.’**

It’s such a simple truth: regardless or how people treat me, I’m still the same. So what’s important is that I place a value on myself. I’ve read self improvement books and websites, but it was not until I read this story that any of them really meant anything to me. I’d read them, feel empowered, then go to sleep and wake up feeling inferior again. But this story really was life changing.

This book certainly is not worth (well, at least to me) what I bought it for. However, I may not have bought it if it was too expensive because I only had limited amount of cash on me, and of course I couldn’t have known the life lesson it would to teach me. So thank you to the lecturer and Paulo Coelho.