What is Expected of a human being

One day Nasrudin Khoja and a group of his neighbors were going somewhere together.  They all rode upon their donkeys. When they came to a hill, Nasrudin noticed that his donkey was sweating.  He got down from its back and whispered into its ear, “I am sorry that you are working so hard that you are sweating.”

His neighbors noticed this odd behavior and were curious. “Nasrudin, what did you whisper to your donkey?” one of them asked.

“I told my donkey that I was sorry he had to work so hard that he was sweating from the exertion,” answered Nasrudin.

All his neighbors laughed, and one of them said, “Why did you do that?  Donkeys do not understand human speech. They are not at all human.”

“What I do is what concerns me,” replied Nasrudin.  “I did what is expected of a human being, and I do not care whether or not he understood what I said.”