What container do you live in ?
My wife and I really enjoy watching Antiques Roadshow. People bring in their collectables to get expert opinions on how much they are worth. It’s fun to see people come in with items that they think are maybe worth $300-$1000 and find out it’s worth $100,000. If this ever happened to us, we agreed we would take a picture with the item as a memory and sell it immediately.
In one episode, a woman brought in an old, beautiful pot or terrine (which is French for pot).
It had been in her family for years and years. When they would get together, they would serve soup, stew, or chili out of it. It was always in the middle of the dining room table at gatherings and holidays. This had been in the family for more than a hundred years.
She hands the pot to the expert; they turn it upside down and look it all around. They pause and finally tell her that it’s not a serving bowl. It’s not a terrine. It’s an old chamber pot! If you don’t know what a chamber pot is, well, back in the day when there wasn’t any plumbing, this would sit beside the bed in case you needed to go in the middle of the night.
This made me think – We’re all just like porcelain pots. We’re all a Container of some sort. Some people might believe that they are chamber pots, and some people might believe that they are a terrine. The important thing is what you put inside and what you want to be. If you put bad in, you get bad out, but if you are putting something good inside, then you can be a terrine. Be something that people want to enjoy and that people are willing to share. You can take the container that you are and make something beautiful.
So, what will you do with the container that you’ve been given - Will you live the life of a chamber pot or a French terrine?
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