The Cracked Pot
A story about self value
There once lived a skilled potter who made two beautiful clay pots with her own hands. She loved them dearly and used them to carry grains from the market to her home. Each pot proudly carried its load, helping to store food for the winter months.
One autumn day, after bringing home her harvest, she discovered that one of the pots had developed a crack. The pot was heartbroken, feeling it had failed at its purpose. “I can no longer carry grains safely,” it said. “They’ll slip through my crack and be lost.”
The potter looked at her beloved pot with gentle eyes and said, “Just because you can no longer do what you were first made for, doesn’t mean you can’t do something else beautifully.” She began using both pots to carry water from the river instead.
The cracked pot continued to feel ashamed as it leaked water along the path, while its partner remained perfect and full. After months of this, the cracked pot finally spoke up: “I’m so sorry. Every day I lose half my water. I’m failing you all over again.”
The potter smiled and said, “Tomorrow morning as we walk, look carefully at the path as we walk.”
The next day, as they made their journey, the pot was amazed to see a trail of young wheat plants growing along its side of the path. “Do you see?” the potter said. “Those are from the grains that fell through your crack on that last journey. The water you’ve been ‘losing’ has been nurturing these seeds. Now I have wheat growing freely along my path, enough to make bread for the whole season.”
“But how did you know this would happen?” the pot asked in wonder.
“I didn’t,” the potter replied. “I just knew that everything has its purpose, even if that purpose changes with time. Sometimes our greatest gifts come not from staying the same, but from learning to trust in new ways of being useful.”
From that day forward, the cracked pot understood that its journey of transformation – from grain carrier to water carrier to nurturing new life – was not a story of failure, but one of evolution and unexpected blessings.