The Scale In the marketplace, there was an old scale owned by a man named Naeem. It wasn’t new or shiny, but it was accurate. For that reason, people chose it—even if they had to wait in line. One day, a young man new to trade arrived carrying a modern scale—light, fast, and appealing. He set up near Naeem and began calling out loudly to customers: “My weighing is faster… and there’s no mistake in it.” Naeem smiled and said nothing. As days passed, crowds gathered around the young man, and fewer people stopped at Naeem’s scale. Someone said to Naeem, “You could lighten the scale just a little. No one would notice.” Naeem looked at his scale and replied, “I don’t weigh only for people… I weigh for myself.” After some time, complaints began to surface about the young man. Sometimes the weight was more, sometimes less. The errors were small—but frequent. Slowly, people returned to Naeem’s scale. One quiet evening, the young man came to Naeem and said, “Your scale is slower, but it stays straight… how?” Naeem answered calmly, “Because I fix it every day, before I begin selling.” The young man paused, then asked, “And how do I know when my scale needs fixing?” Naeem said, “When you start justifying the mistake instead of correcting it.” Wisdom: Not everything that profits quickly lasts. Not everything that seems small can be ignored. Some things, when slightly unbalanced, ruin much more than they appear.