This moving story taught me a valuable lesson.

A teacher decided to honour each of her students by telling them the difference they each made to her and the class. She presented each student with a blue ribbon imprinted with gold letters, “Who I Am Makes A Difference”. She gave the students three ribbons and instructed them to spread the acknowledgment as a project.

One of her learners went to a junior executive and honoured him for helping him with his career planning. He pinned a ribbon on the man’s shirt. Then he gave him the two other ribbons and asked the executive to honour someone else with the extra ribbon. The junior executive went to see his boss, who was ‘grouchy.’

He told him that he admired him for being a creative genius. His surprised boss agreed and the executive pinned the ribbon on his boss’s jacket. As he gave him the last extra ribbon, he told him to honour someone. The boss went home to his teen son and sat him down. He said: “The most incredible thing happened to me today,” and told him of the junior executive who admired him.

“On my way home I thought of who I would honour with this ribbon and I thought about you. My days are hectic and when I come home I don’t pay a lot of attention to you. The man screams at the son for his ‘not good enough’ school results and messy room. He sat and let his son know of the difference he makes.

“Besides your mother, you are the most important person in my life.” The surprised boy cried uncontrollably, his whole body shook when his father said: “You’re a great kid and I love you.” He said through his tears, “Dad, earlier I sat in my room and wrote a letter explaining why I killed myself and asking you to forgive me.

I was going to commit suicide tonight; I didn’t think you cared about me. The boss went back to work a changed man and shared the message with his employees.