When do we learn the most important lessons in life?
How do we learn them?
We can amass no greater wealth than deep and trusting relationships cultivated through care, decency, and consistency, yet the knowledge and insights needed to build and sustain these relationships are rare. Simply being told what is right or wrong, what steps to take or where, is never enough, so life finds its own unique ways of teaching us these lessons that we never imagined nor anticipated. How, then, can we be sure that we will remember and apply these lessons in our own life? What enables those seeds of wisdom to blossom into principles that bear the fruit of a life well spent? Is it our own participation in the process of hearing, reasoning, questioning, and deciding?
The Companion encourages children to discover within themselves the fundamentals of life which they already know, and which can never be reinforced strongly enough. The value of nurturing long-term relationships through empathy and compassion is contrasted with the consequences of selfishly seeking instant gratification in the form of a parable that guides the child toward self-discovery. Rather than a prescriptive manual for kindness, this book offers the essential lessons necessary to cultivate the wisdom available to us all.