Call nothing useless.

The road was flooded with people and vehicles. Everyone seemed to be busy in their own way. The cobbler was sitting at the corner of the street, stitching the torn rubber slippers of the first of his customers for the day. This innocent man didn’t know that he was going to mark the beginning of a grand future for his countrymen. Once he was done with the stitching job, he threw away the extra bit of thread that he thought would be good for the task. The man, who was sweeping away the garbage from the roadside, was found collecting all the litters in a dedicated container. During the course, the thread that the cobbler threw away considering it a waste reached the cleaner’s container. The rubbish was then transferred to a large garbage collecting vehicle, something like Neel Metal Fanalca’s, then to a sprawling area for proper disposal, where the garbage were separated depending upon their recycling capability. The recyclable thread material was taken to the cotton mill for recycling along with other cloth materials that were thrown off as wastes.

In the mill, a fine mesh was produced by proper treatment of all the waste cloth materials and this was used for producing new thread series that can be used for various other purposes. A part of the thread produced was sent to make orbs of kite thread one of which was bought by a boy to fly kite. As an expert in kite flying, the boy managed to come out successfully of a kite fight. During the course, the other boy lost his kite which found its uncertain path in the air and finally reached ground zero. A rag picker added the kite to his not so significant collections in his dusty bag, which was on its way to a paper mill for recycling. Again, the kite formed a part of the paper mesh material, a part of which was sent to the Government department that is responsible for deciding the standard of college/school question papers and distributing paper materials to these institutions.

Exam time. Question papers were ready. A boy, low in confidence, who was about to write the exam, got the question paper from the invigilator, which contains a part of the kite’s paper material. Exams were over and the boy, being an Engineering student, threw away the question paper. Once again, it was taken for recycling, recycled and now sent to a newspaper company that needed papers to print the news for the day. A young man, unemployed, buys one of the newspapers that contains an element of the question paper material, and to his surprise, he finds a vacancy in a software company. He attended the interview, cleared it successfully and took a vital position in the firm. This man was so very efficient at work that he was able to improve his company’s performance within a very short time and the company was going uphill giving no chance for a slide back.

The company was named Macrohard, following the technique that was used to name the world’s most famous multinational computer technology corporation. Soon the company entered into an agreement with its Western counterpart to take a big stride in the Indian market by setting up a massive headquarters in the homeland. As a result, the foreign exchange growth was tremendous, bringing home large amount of foreign money. With this development came the decision to increase the number of employees associated with Macrohard. This resulted in the rapid growth of per capita income. This, in turn, took the standard of living, in India, from the present low level to the skies.

Soon the company found within itself its capability to undertake the operations of all other companies of its kind that were running low in the business. Very soon, these smaller firms gained recognition in the market and they were given chances to relive once again with newer and bigger tasks. This led these companies to recruit more number of people to complete the jobs within the specified period of time. This gave an additional boost to the country’s overall development and wealth started flowing into the nation’s treasury. There was no looking back after this for the firms, the people associated with them and the whole nation.

With the high tides hitting the per capita income, the lifestyle of the people changed tremendously. Normal pants and shirts became formal coats and ties. Rubber slippers and shoes made of synthetic materials transformed into leatherwear. One fine day, the young man, who was the CEO of Macrohard now, came to the cobbler to stitch his torn leather boots, hesitating to throw them away. The cobbler now started minting more money since most of his customers had started going for leatherwear.

Now, India would be rightly called a developed Nation.

Did you just realize what happened? A cobbler made all the changes. He changed the way India had been projecting itself to the world all these years. If the cobbler had not thrown away the extra bit of thread, the thread that the boy used to fly kite would have missed a part of it. If the boy had not won the kite fight, the other one’s kite wouldn’t have found its way to the recycling process. If the kite had not been recycled, a shortage of paper, at least at the smallest level, for producing the question papers would have occurred. If the boy, after completing the exams, had not thrown away the question paper, it wouldn’t have been recycled and there would have been a shortage of papers required for the newspaper printing. Had the newspapers not been printed due to lack of papers, the youngster wouldn’t have come across the job vacancy and he would have missed a chance to enter the software company. Had he missed this opportunity, the company would have remained in the same ground as before. Had there been no development in the company’s growth and had there been no collaboration between the two big firms, the country’s economic growth would have been hampered, and the employment percentage of the nation would have remained low. Had the economic growth rate been at low, the nation would have never acquired the status of a developed country.

You got a message here. Even the smallest of your actions add a lot to the environment surrounding you. If that is the significance attached to even the smallest of events, then it’s up to every one of us to think how important each second of our life is. Never consider anything useless. Everything has a cause. Everything has a reason. Everything has an effect.

Your efforts are never in vain.

Nothing goes down the drain.