The Birdseed and the Cats

Once there was a man who put bird seed and water out because he loved birds and wanted his garden to be filled with happy singing birds and before long his wish came true, hundreds of birds of all kinds started to gather in his garden, perching on the branches of his trees and chirping merrily and the man was very happy.

But then, soon, he noticed, that cats were also coming into his garden and killing the birds who were eating his bird seed and though he tried shooing some of them away he couldn’t keep a constant watch over his garden and cats always managed to sneak in and kill some of the birds.

“What shall I do?”, he wondered despairingly, “I want to feed the birds but I don’t want the cats to kill them but how can I do one without the other happening?”.

And so the man stopped feeding the birds and they stopped coming to his garden and when they stopped coming the cats stopped coming as well but without the birds and their pretty song the garden became a far gloomier place and the man felt sad.

But then one day when the man was in his garden, digging and planting, a Sparrow sat down next to him and started to twitter to itself.

“Oh I remember this garden from when I was just a chick”, said the Sparrow, “It was always full of birds and we never went hungry because the man who owned it was so generous and kind, always putting out food and water for us but then, one day, I remember, he stopped being kind and the food and water stopped coming. I wonder why he stopped being kind? Perhaps he didn’t like birds anymore”.

When he heard this the man felt misunderstood and very upset.

“That is not true”, he told the Sparrow, “I am the man who owns this garden and I have always liked birds. I only stopped putting out birdseed because cats kept coming into the garden and killing birds”.

“Oh, but you shouldn’t have”, said the Sparrow, “Don’t you see? For every bird killed by a cat there were hundreds more who survived because of the food you put out.  You shouldn’t stop doing good just because bad things may sometimes come of it for, in the end, the good you have done will always outweigh the bad”.