An elderly Chinese woman carried two pots on a pole across her neck daily to collect water from a stream. One pot had a crack while the other was perfect. The cracked pot could only deliver half as much water as the perfect pot by the time they returned home. After two years, the cracked pot felt ashamed of its imperfection until the woman revealed that she had planted flowers along the cracked pot's side of the path, which it had watered during their walks, allowing her to decorate her home with beautiful flowers.