Disappointment can be a catalyst to self discovery. See what happened to this man

I once read a story about an unemployed man who in desperation  to support his family applied for a janitor's job at a large firm and easily passed the aptitude test.

The human resources manager told him, "You will be hired at minimum wage of $5.15 an hour. Let me have your e-mail address so that we can get you in the loop. Our system will automatically e-mail you all the forms and advise you when to start and where to report on your first day."


Taken back, the man protested that he was poor and had neither a computer nor an e-mail address. To this the manager replied, "You must understand that to a company like ours that means that you virtually do not exist. Without an e-mail address you can hardly expect to be employed by a high-tech firm. Good day."

Stunned, the man left. Not knowing where to turn and having $10 in his wallet, he walked past a farmers' market and saw a stand selling 25lb crates of beautiful red tomatoes. He bought a crate, carried it to a busy corner and displayed the tomatoes.

In less than 2 hours he sold all the tomatoes and made 100% profit. Repeating the process several times more that day, he ended up with almost $100 and arrived home that night with several bags of groceries for his family.

During the night he decided to repeat the tomato business the next day and continued daily. He got up early every day and worked into the night. He multiplied his profits quickly. Early in the second week he acquired a cart to transport several boxes of tomatoes at a time, but before a month was up he sold the cart to buy a broken-down pickup truck.

At the end of a year he owned three old trucks. His two sons had left their neighborhood gangs to help him with the tomato business, his wife was buying the tomatoes, and his daughter took night courses at the community college so she could keep books for him.

By the end of the second year he had a dozen very nice used trucks and had employed fifteen previously unemployed people, all selling tomatoes. He continued to work hard.

Time passed and at the end of the fifth year he owned a fleet of nice trucks and a warehouse which his wife supervised, plus two tomato farms that the boys managed. The tomato company's payroll had put hundreds of homeless and jobless people to work. It was reported that the business grossed a million dollars.

Planning for the future, he decided to buy some life insurance. Consulting with an insurance adviser, he picked an insurance plan to fit his new circumstances. Then the adviser asked him for his e-mail address in order to send the final documents electronically.

"I don't have time to mess with a computer and I have no e-mail address" replied the man

Stunned, the insurance man responded:
" What, you don't have e-mail? No computer? No Internet? Just think where you would be today if you'd had all of that five years ago!"

"Ha!" snorts the man. "If I'd had e-mail five years ago I would be sweeping floors at Microsoft and making $5.15 an hour."

Funny story, I think. But one Wisdom I have from this story is this:
 "In your moments of disappointments, rather than get consumed and complain, just watch out for an opportunity because the only reason you met with that disappointment could have been just for you to see this one opportunity which you never might have seen all your life if you hadn't met with that disappointment"