For all of us when we're feeling down and depressed

Cassan Said Amer tells the story of a lecturer who began a seminar by holding up a twenty-dollar bill and asking,‘Who would like this twenty-dollar bill?’

Several hands went up, but the lecturer said,‘Before I give it to you, I have to do something.’

He screwed it up into a ball and said,‘Who still wants this bill?’

The hands went up again.‘And what if I do this to it?’

He threw the crumpled bill at the wall, dropped it on the floor, insulted it, trampled on it, and once more showed them the bill – now all creased and dirty.

He repeated the question, and the hands stayed up.

‘Never forget this scene,’ he said.‘It doesn’t matter what I do to this money. It is still a twenty dollar-bill.So often in our lives, we are crumpled, trampled, ill-treated, insulted,And yet, despite all that, we are still worth the same.’

- from Paulo Coelho’s “Like A Flowing River”