An elderly Chinese lady possessed two large buckets, suspended at each end of a rod, which she carried on her back. One of the buckets was cracked and the other was perfect.
The latter was always full of water at the end of the long walk from the torrent to the house, as soon as the crack arrived half empty. For a long time this was so, with the lady who came to the house with only a bucket and a half of water.
Naturally the perfect bucket was very proud of its own result and the poor cracked bucket was ashamed of its defect, of managing to do only half of what it should do. After two years, reflecting on his own bitter defeat at being cracked, the bucket spoke to the lady along the way:
“I’m ashamed of myself, because this crack I have makes me lose half the water on the way to your house.”
The old lady smiled: “Have you noticed that beautiful flowers are only on your side of the road?” – “I wanted to bring out the positive side of your cracks and planted flower seeds next to you along the way. And every day, when we came back, you watered them. For two years I was able to collect those beautiful flowers to decorate the table! If you were not as you are, with your capacity and your limitations, it would not have been possible to create that beauty! “
“Each of us has some flaw. But the defect that each of us has, is what makes our coexistence interesting and rewarding. It is necessary to accept each one for what he is … and discover what is good about him.”
Photo by Fikri Rasyid on Unsplash
