Stephanie, this is not the story I told you about, but it is very similar. I have no idea who wrote it.



"Once upon a time a group of people with a common interest got together and decided to build a train. The train, they agreed, would help them reach destinations that currently were out of reach.



With everyone working together, the train soon provided some good service to its passengers. Some passengers even volunteered to assist others, providing pillows, soft drinks and magazines. The train was clean and ran on time. Most importantly, every passenger paid a fair price for his ticket.



One day a passenger decided he didn't like a minor thing about the train. "It stops at stations I don't wish to visit.", he said. So he decided not to pay for his ticket. But he still drank his soft drink, rested on his pillow, read his magazine and rode to his destination. He apparently didn't notice that the other passengers now had to pay a little more for their tickets so the train could still run.



Soon, another passenger decided she was too busy to help distribute and collect the magazines. But she still drank her soft drink, rested on her pillows, read a magazine and rode to her destination. Other passengers volunteered to work harder on the magazines to replace her efforts.



Soon, more passengers realized that they also could refuse to buy tickets or volunteer for duties, and someone else would pay more fare and do more work. Everyone had a good excuse. Soon the train stopped and everyone wondered why."



This story is so true of life. We all are excited in the beginning and then our excitement wanes and we get tired of the work it takes to maintain things. We can always think up a good excuse and we wonder why others get tired of always doing the work.