The 99 Club

Long ago, there lived a king who should have been contented with his life, given all his riches and luxuries he had. However, this was not the case. The king was always wondering why he just never seemed happy with what he had.

Sure, he had the attention of everyone wherever he  went, and he attended fancy dinners and parties. Yet, he still felt something was lacking but couldn't put his finger on it.

One day, the king woke up earlier than usual to stroll around his palace. He entered his huge living room and came to a stop when he heard someone happily singing away. He followed the sound of the song and found one of the servants singing. The man had a very contented look on his face.

This fascinated the king and he summoned him to his chambers. The servant entered as ordered and the king asked why he was so happy?

To that, he replied: " Your Majesty, I am nothing but a servant, but I make enough to keep my wife and children happy. They are my inspiration; they are contented with whatever little I bring home. We don't need much - a roof over our heads and warm food to fill our stomachs. I am happy because my family is happy."

Hearing this, the King dismissed the servant and called for his personal assistant. The King poured out his personal anguish and then related the story of the servant. He hoped that somehow, his assistant would be able to tell him why a ruler who could have anything he wished for at a snap of his fingers was not contented, whereas his servant, who had so little, was extremely happy.

The assistant listened attentively and came to a conclusion. "Your Majesty, I believe that the servant is not a member of The 99 Club."

"The 99 Club? And what is that?"

"To truly know what The 99 Club is, Your Majesty will have to place 99 gold coins in a bag and leave it at this servant's doorstep."

That very evening, the king arranged for 99 gold coins to be placed at the servant's doorstep. He was slightly hesitant and thought he should have put 100 coins into the bad, but decided to do as his assistant had advised.

The servant was just stepping out of his house when he saw the bag at his doorstep. Wondering what it could contain, he took it into his house and opened it. When he saw the gold coins, he let out a joyous shout. There were so many of them!

He could hardly believe his eyes. He called out to his wife and showed her the shiny pieces. He then took the bag to a table, emptied it out and began to count the coins. Soon, he came to 99 and it struck him that that was an odd number. So he counted the coins again and again, only to arrive at the same number.

The servant began to wonder what could have happened to the last coin. There must have been 100, for who would put just 99 coins in the bag?

He began to search his entire house, and poked and looked around his backyard. For hours, he searched because he didn't want to lose out on that one coin. Finally, exhausted, he decided that he would have to work harder than ever to earn enough to complete his entire collection of 100 gold coins.

He got up late the next morning, in an extremely bad mood, and started shouting at his wife and children. What he didn't realise was that he'd spent most of the night thinking of ways to work hard so that he would have enough money to buy himself one gold coin.

Then he went to work, only not in his usual happy mood, with a song on his lips, but feeling grumpy and tired.

When the King saw the servant, he was puzzled to see the changes in his attitude. He promptly summoned his assistant to his chambers. The King related his thoughts about the man and once again, his assistant listened. The King had thought that the servant who, until yesterday, had been contented with his life should be even happier after receiving the gold coins.

To this, the assistant replied: "Ah! But Your Majesty, the servant has now officially joined The 99 Club."

He explained: "The 99 Club is just a name given to those people who have everything yet are never contented. They are always striving for that extra one gold coin to round off what they have to 100!

"We have so much to be thankful for and we can live with very little. But the minute we are given something bigger and better, we want even more. We are not the same happy, contented person we used to be.

"We don;t realise the price we have to pay for wanting more and more - we lost sleep, we hurt the people around us ... That is what joining The 99 Club is all about."

Sent to Starmag by Lydia Chin