An elderly Chinese woman carried two pots on a pole across her neck each day to fetch water - one pot was cracked while the other was perfect. The cracked pot could only deliver half as much water by the time they returned home due to leaks, which made it ashamed of its imperfection. However, the woman had planted flower seeds along the cracked pot's side of the path, which it had watered each day, allowing her to pick beautiful flowers to decorate her home. She told the pot that it was the cracks that allowed for this beauty.