01.01.1932 Gaziantep – 01.01.2012 Gaziantep
One day a man walks into the palace of a wise man. And asks; can you tell me the secret of happiness? Wise man looks at the man and hands him a spoon filled with oil and says ‘ take this spoon and browse around my palace and later come and tell me what you have seen. But be careful not to spill the oil in the spoon’. Young man says ‘all right’ and takes the spoon and begins browsing the palace and returns back to the wise man after two hours. Wise man asks ‘ did you browse my palace? ‘ Man nods his hade as if to say yes. ‘ Well then, did you see the roses in my paradise garden? ‘ Man answers ‘ no ‘ .
Wise man asks again ; ‘Well then, did you see the new born colts? “No”.What about the fresh smelling pine trees? “No”. ‘And did you see the chinaware on the walls of my palace? ”No”… Man continues to answer no to whatever the wise man asks. Getting bored of repeating the word no; he says ‘I was unable to look at anything for the fear of spilling the oil in the spoon ‘. Wise man gives him another spoon filled with oil and says ‘ take this spoon and browse around my palace ones more but this time don’t come back until seeing all the beauty in my environment’.
A few hours later young man returns. He begins telling wise man about all the things that he has seen with great excitement. ‘ Colts running around the ranch and the baby goats playing with their mother remind me of my childhood. There are so many roses in your garden and I was unable to count actually. But I enjoyed the red roses the most. Baby ducks in the small pond were adorable. A person can actually spend his whole entire life just looking at them. Your palace is very big, especially those magnificent marble columns that looks like an elephant foot. I especially looked carefully at the chinaware. Craftsmen that created these must have endured great pain.’ ‘ Man was so excited that he couldn’t contain it within. Wise man says ‘Very well’ and signals him to stop with his hand. He asks ‘did you bring back my spoon as in the way I handed it to you?’ Man says ‘of course’. He extends the spoon but to his dismay he sees that there is no oil left in the spoon.
‘ Here my child’ says the wise man that sees the situation. ‘The secret of happiness is to experience all the beauties of the world and realize them however, also remembering the spoonful of oil in your hand.’ Yes dear friends. As the wise man said; didn’t the time arrive to pick back up our spoons we long before set aside let alone forgetting them? You are right, the time has arrived. That is also the way how we considered and we are going to continue to work to carry Gürteks, which we nourished and developed since the year of 1970, since the year of 1970, furthest without dropping the spoon and the oil inside the spoon. Our group that renders it services in many areas is going to undersign new investments by teaming up with all my personnel, whom I call my family…
Mehmet Hayri ÖZKAYA
HONORARY PRESIDENT