There once was an oyster, whose story I’ll tell,Who found that some sand had gotten into his shell.
It was only a grain, but it gave him great pain,
For oysters have feelings, although they are plain.
Now, did he berate the harsh workings of fate
That had brought him to such a deplorable state?
“No,” he said to himself, “since I cannot remove it,
I’ll lie in my shell and think how to improve it.”
They years rolled around, as the years always do,
And he came to his ultimate destiny… stew.
Now the small grain of sand that had bothered him so
Was a beautiful pearl all richly aglow.
This tale has a moral, for isn’t it grand,
What an oyster can do with a morsel of sand?
Think… what could we do, if we’d only begin
With some of the things that get under our skin. —Anonymous (I heard this poem as a part of a brilliant message on dealing with life’s irritations)
Craig T. Owens 