Once there was a man who acquired a claim to a gold field in California. The claim was in a lonely spot in the mountains. When the man started to dig for gold, he found evidence that much work had been done on the claim a long while before. Far into the excavation he found an old rusted pick, its handle rotted off but its point sticking firmly in the rocky soil. He went to work and, to his amazement, just a few feet beyond where he had found the pick he came upon a rich vein of gold. 

Later he would learn that another man had once worked that claim. This man had invested many years of his life searching for gold. He also had begun with high hopes and great dreams. But those hopes dissipated into bitter disappointment when he labored and was not rewarded. It became harder day by day to sus…