A man was exploring caves by a seashore when he found a bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. The balls looked like someone had intentionally rolled the clay and left them out in the sun to bake. The man thought that some children made them while they were at the beach. They didn’t look much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the bag out of the cave.
As he strolled along the beach, he threw the clay balls one by one out to the oceans as far as he could. The clay balls would fly and disappear into the sea. The man threw several clay balls in the ocean until he dropped one of the balls, which cracked open. Inside the clay was a beautiful, precious stone.
This discovery excited the man, and he started breaking the remaining clay balls. Each of them contained different types of precious stones. He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in around twenty clay balls left with him. Then it struck him. He had been on the beach for a long time and must have thrown away many clay balls with hidden treasures into the sea. He could have had a treasure worth tens of thousands rather than just thousands if he had not thrown the clay balls away.
Most of the time, we look at someone or even ourselves and see the external clay vessel. The vessel doesn’t always look sparkly and pleasant, so we never bother to look inside it. We tend to see and judge a person and deem them less important than the ones who are more beautiful, stylish, well known or wealthy. We forget to look inside for the unique treasure each of us holds.
May we not come to the end of our lives and realize that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships, love or any relationship because we did not attempt to look for the gems hidden in bits of clay. Instead, let us all relish the treasures each of us holds inside us.
