There was a man who made his living selling balloons at a fair. He had balloons of many colors, including red, yellow, blue and green. Whenever business was slow, he would release a helium-filled balloon into the air. When the children saw the balloon go up, they all wanted one. They would come up to him, buy a balloon and his sales would go up. All day, he continued to release a balloon whenever sales were slow. One day, the balloon man felt someone tugging at his jacket. He turned around and a little boy asked, “If you release a black balloon, will that also fly?” Moved by the boy’s concern, the man replied gently, “Son, it is not the color of the balloon, it is what’s inside that makes it go up.”

THE same principle applies to our lives: It’s what’s inside that counts and what’s inside of us that makes us go up is our attitude.

Many of you might have read/ heard this story before; Richard and the balloon man. But despite of the above conclusion, there’s more to the story. The story also focuses on colour discrimination. Everyone human being, right from their birth, are taught to consider fair, white people as beautiful whereas the dark ones are considered being ugly. Who categorized humans based on their appearance and not what they own inside them. No outer appearance decides the altitudes a person might reach, it’s the attitude they hold that paves their way towards success.

William James of Harvard University said, “The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.”