Day always comes after night.

Once long ago, before most of us can imagine, in the plains of a desert, lived a lone tribe. This tribe was made up of exceptionally greedy people and the gods soon deemed them unworthy of many marvels. One was the light of day.

Soon the tribe was begging for daylight, for without it, the crops wouldn’t grow and starvation was sweeping them. Taking pity, the gods gave the tribes people a chance to redeem themselves.

“You must do many good deeds for one another. Each good deed will reward you. If enough are done, you shall be rewarded with daylight again, otherwise live and perish in darkness,” the gods had told them.

The tribe was stunned at the decree, for doing good deeds would mean not being greedy and that very thought seemed to astound them. But the need for the light of day was strong enough to overpower the desire for greed and soon good deeds were being done.

To the tribe’s astonishment, every good deed would result in a simple dot of light in the dark sky.

“They are stars. One star for one good deed. Get enough and they shall shine as bright as day,” they were told.

Soon the dark sky was dotted with millions of stars and every tribe’s person would admire the view at any chance. They all fell in love with it but daylight was still needed and the good deeds continued.

A few weeks later, enough good deeds had been done to light the sky up as bright as any day. The star’s light all molded together and the tribe rejoiced as the crops grew and starvation was a thing of the past.

But deep down, all the tribes people missed the simple view of the stars and soon found that the simple admiring of the stars that had brought them peace was long gone. This resulted in the greed returning and the numbers of good deeds being done were greatly reduced.

The gods once again deemed the tribe unworthy of the light of day but upon closer inspection realized that there were many in the tribe that still continued doing good deeds. The gods then decided, that since the good deeds were still being done by the majority, they would gift the tribe with somewhat control of how much daylight they received.

Daylight would return to night as the bad deeds overpowered the good deeds. As night returned the tribe’s people would begin the good deeds again and stars would light up the sky. When enough good deeds were done, daylight would return, but when many bad deeds were done, night would return and the cycle would start all over again.

And to this day, the cycle still continues, so every time you look up at the stars, remember that someone out there has done a good deed to earn that star and the light of day.