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[激起……的兴趣] the man, so he took the bag out of the cave with him. As he strolled[漫步] along the beach, he threw 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 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[容器]. It isn’t always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it.
There is a treasure in each and every one of us. May we not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships or other relationships because the gems[宝石] were hidden in bits of clay.
一个男人到海滩边的山洞里探险。在其中一个山洞里,他发现了一个帆布袋子,里面装着一些已经风干硬化的泥球。看起来像是有人捏出了这些小土球,然后放在太阳底下烘晒。
这些小土球看起来不怎么值钱,却引起了男人的兴趣,于是他带着袋子离开了山洞。他在沙滩漫步,一次一个地把小土球使劲扔进海里。
他没太在意,直到不小心掉了一个小土球。小球掉到岩石上,裂开了。里面竟然是一块漂亮的宝石!
男人兴奋极了,弄开剩下的小土球。每一个土球里面都有一块相似的宝石。他在剩下的20几颗小土球里发现了价值几千美元的珠宝。
然后他突然想起来了,自己大概扔掉了五六十个土球,这些被隐藏起来的宝物就这样随着海浪而去。他本可以带走价值数万美元的宝石,如今却只剩下几千美元,而他就这样把它们扔进海里了!
事实上,人们总是这样。在看待别人甚至自己的时候,我们只看到覆盖在外面的那一层粘土外观。它并不总是靓丽光鲜,于是我们轻视了它的价值。
我们每一个人的体内都有一块宝石。愿我们不会走到生命的尽头才发现,我们已将友谊或是其他情感中的宝藏抛弃,只因为它们藏在一层泥土之下。