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.