Clay Balls

A man was exploring caves by the Seashore. In one of the caves, he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake.They didn't look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the bag out of the cave with him. As he strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could.He thought little about it, until he dropped one of the clay balls and it cracked open on a rock. Inside was a beautiful, precious stone!Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left.Then it struck him. He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls, with their hidden treasure, into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of thousands but he had just thrown it away!

It's like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn't look like much from the outside. It isn't always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it.We see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy. But we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside that person.

There is a treasure in each and every one of us.

Looking for the Gold

As a young Scot boy, Andrew Carnegie came to America and started doing odd jobs. He ended up as one of the largest steel manufacturers in the US. At one time, he had 43 millionaires working for him. Several decades ago, a million dollars used to be a lot of money. Even today, it is a lot of money. Someone asked Mr. Carnegie how he dealt with people? Andrew Carnegie replied, “Dealing with people is like digging gold. When you go digging for an ounce of gold, you have to move tons of dirt to get an ounce of gold. But when you go digging, you don’t go looking for the dirt, you go looking for the gold.”

So, what is your focus? Become a digger of gold. If you are looking for what is wrong with people or with things, you will find many. What are you looking for? Andrew Carnegie’s reply has a very important message. There is something positive in every person and every situation. Sometimes we have to dig deep to look for the positive because it may not be apparent. Besides, we are so used to looking for what is wrong with other people and situations, we forget to see what is right. Someone once said that even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Remember, when you go looking for gold, you have to move tons of dirt to get an ounce of gold. But when you go looking, you don’t go looking for the dirt, you go looking for the gold.

Thanks to Ramadurai for sharing this.