Once a student came to a wise sage and asked:
— What else do people lack to make the world better?
— They lack things that they do not ask about, — he answered. And, seeing the perplexity of a person who asked the question, explained:
— What people ask God for? Happiness, wealth, love, even talent – for the sake of success and fame. But did you hear that someone asked to make him smarter or kinder?
The student thought and shook his head.
— That‘s it! — The sage said regretfully. — Everyone consider himself sufficiently intelligent and kind, willing himself entirely different. And so the world does not become any smarter and kinder.
Leaving, the student repeated himself: “Good mind – that‘s what people do not think to ask for that the world would become better.”
But the thought to start from himself did not occur to him.