A caravan was travelling through the night and stumbled upon the side of a mysterious-looking mountain that the caravan's leaders could not identify. So they approach the old man who was travelling with them with a few pebbles off the mountain to see if he can recognize it.
The old man, who is apparently identified in books of religions from Judaism to Islam (not to mention Mormonism) as the Prophet Job, examined the pebbles and declared "It's the Rock of Regrets."
Hearing this, most of the men in the caravan decided to ignore the pebbles and the mountain. "Why should we burden our heavy loads," they figured, "with the Rock of Regrets." A few though, take some of the smaller pebbles with them.
The caravan then continued to travel through the night and by morning had reached a place far from that mysterious mountain. With the benefit of sunlight, the men open up their loads and made a startling discovery. The pebbles, which Job had identified as a Rock of Regret, had turned out to be diamonds!
An angry mob of all the men in the caravan descended on Job to chastise him. Job, however, maintained his ground. "It's the Rock of Regrets," he said, "Those of you who didn't take any of the Rock regret not taking any of it, and those of you who took some of the Rock, regret not taking more."
"So, it's the Rock of Regrets."
Whatever the significance of Job (Ayoob) or this story may be in any religion (my understanding is that this particular story is based on a story in the Koran though it may exist in other religions as well), the story, which was found in a children's storybook in Iran, is consistent with the Persian values of being content with what you have and not being greedy for more.
The Rock of Regrets
Only Thing I Own is a Pure Heart
"I thought Persian values was about driving Mercedes and Ferrari's," said the 20-year old Persian college student innocently as we were riding on a Long Island Railroad train to Great Neck the other night. "I understand why you might think that," I said, "but true Persian values, believe it or not, are actually quite non-materialistic." He was understandably surprised, so I told him about the song lyrics below, whose subplot is about a man who was dumped by a woman. But the real story of the song is about being content with what you have.
Utterly free
From Because and Why
With what is given by God
Always content
Always content
After complaining to her about why she left him, the man goes on to declare himself to be a Darvish, a mystical figure whose origins are beyond the scope of this blog. For our purposes, note the man's attitude toward material things.
I am a darvish
And the world to me
Is nothing but a fist full of soil
The whole sum of my belongings
Is a pure heart.
A darvish will spend the night
On any old rag
A drop of water
Or an entire sea
Makes no difference to him.
(Golpa's "Darvish")