Post edited 5:46 pm – July 19, 2010 by EricC

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As my trading career is young and still in its developmental stages, I am trying to learn to cope with the variance and unforgivingness of this business.

For anyone who feels like they will never get the knack of this trading game, read this short passage that I find to be both encouraging and humbling.

 

And This Too Shall Pass

 

One day Solomon decided to humble Benaiah ben Yehoyada, his most

trusted minister. He said to him, "Benaiah, there is a certain ring that

I want you to bring to me. I wish to wear it for Sukkot which gives you

six months to find it."

 

"If it exists anywhere on earth, your majesty," replied Benaiah, "I will

find it and bring it to you, but what makes the ring so special?"

 

"It has magic powers," answered the king. "If a happy man looks at it,

he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy." Solomon

knew that no such ring existed in the world, but he wished to give his

minister a little taste of humility.

 

Spring passed and then summer, and still Benaiah had no idea where he

could find the ring. On the night before Sukkot, he decided to take a

walk in one of he poorest quarters of Jerusalem. He passed by a merchant who had begun to set out

the day's wares on a shabby carpet. "Have you by any chance heard of a magic

ring that makes the happy wearer forget his joy and the broken-hearted wearer

forget his sorrows?" asked Benaiah.

 

He watched the grandfather take a plain gold ring from his carpet

and engrave something on it. When Benaiah read the words on the ring,

his face broke out in a wide smile.

 

That night the entire city welcomed in the holiday of Sukkot with great

festivity. "Well, my friend," said Solomon, "have you found what I sent

you after?" All the ministers laughed and Solomon himself smiled.

 

To everyone's surprise, Benaiah held up a small gold ring and declared,

"Here it is, your majesty!" As soon as Solomon read the inscription, the

smile vanished from his face. The jeweler had written three Hebrew

letters on the gold band: _gimel, zayin, yud_, which began the words

"_Gam zeh ya'avor_" — "This too shall pass."

 

At that moment Solomon realized that all his wisdom and fabulous wealth

and tremendous power were but fleeting things, for one day he would be

nothing but dust.