7- Rest day

Today's challenge;

Take today day off, catch up on a challenge you missed and/or take this opportunity to review your successes this week.

This is a great opportunity to review the concepts that you explored this week and each challenge that you successfully completed. You also have a growing resource library to check out through the suggested reading in the "Deep Dives".

To mark this first milestone, here is a little extra food for thought. Maybe you have kids who would enjoy this tale or someone else in your life that needs to hear this story today.

This is a traditional folk tale from India. There have been many versions of this over the years, but this is the original. Enjoy!

The Parable of the Cracked Pot

A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. The other pot had a crack in it, and by the time the bearer reached his master’s house, it had leaked out half its water.

For two full years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots of water to his master’s house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the cracked pot was ashamed of its imperfection and miserable that it was only able to accomplish half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you.”

“Why?” asked the bearer. “What are you ashamed of?”

“I have only been able to deliver half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your master’s house.”

The water bearer smiled and said, “Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I knew about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path. Every day while we walked back, you watered them. For two years I’ve been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master’s table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house.”

Moral of the story:

Our imperfections can serve a purpose, even if we don’t immediately see it.

What seems like a weakness may actually be a hidden strength or a source of unexpected beauty.

Congratulations on completing your first week of the expedition. Keep going!

Checkpoint: Something to consider today...

What are your takeaways from this tale?