Life's Lessons: ‘There is a treasure in every one, only we are unaware’

They all seemed to be ordinary balls, with no great artistic merit in them. The man stuffed them back in the bag. Wandering out, he pulled out a clay ball from the bag and threw it into the ocean. It bobbed and was soon lost from sight. He kept throwing more of the clay balls into the sea, aiming farther and farther into the waters. 

However, one of the balls hit a rock nearby, and in the impact, it cracked open. A dazzling gem fell from it. The young man cracked open another ball and found a gem inside it. He then feverishly began cracking more of the clay balls and found precious gems inside each of them. He grabbed them all and stuffed them in his bag, saying, “They are worth thousands of rupees.” 

Suddenly he realised he had thrown away over 50 clay balls, while there were only 20 in the bag. He could have taken home gems worth lakhs of rupees if he had not dismissed the clay balls as worthless, initially. 

Moral: It’s like that with people. We look and see the clay shell. It doesn’t look like much, it doesn’t sparkle or shine, so we discount it. Don’t throw away a fortune in friendships, because you looked only at the exterior.  There is a treasure in each and every one of us, if we take the time to look.