There is an old story about a king who had a beautiful ring and three sons. Each son wanted the ring. When the old king died he left tree rings and a note for his sons that read:

"My dear sons, one of these rings is real and two are fake. The way you will know which on you has the real ring is that the possessor of the ring will always be kind and generous to all our people.

"You will each be given a portion of my kingdom to rule and in time it will be obvious to all which of you has the real ring and is my truly dedicated son."

As you can imagine, all three sons spent the rest of their lives in an unending effort to prove to each other and their subjects that they were the rightful heir to the real ring.

Thus it can be in our own lives. Let us all pretend that we have such a magic ring and do our best to live lives of kindness, honest charity and love. Who knows, maybe we have such a ring and just don't know it until we try to live the life.