Welcome to the Our Moral Compass Podcast. Each daily reading focuses on a different quote on how we can best apply it to our own moral compass and one of the five areas in Social Emotional Learning: Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, Relationship Skills and Responsible Decision Making. Thank you for listening and we hope you consider subscribing to the podcast for future episodes.
It’s Ok To Have A Crack In Your Pot
“Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than a whole one.”
-E.B. White
It’s very rare now a days to hear someone being referred to as a genius. A genius is a person who displays exceptional intellectual ability and creative productivity. Out of the two descriptors within this definition it is creative productivity that really stands out to me the most. While its impressive to have exceptional intellectual ability I fear that most often this breeds arrogance and worse yet overconfidence. When you are able display creative productivity you are able to actually produce something of value with an added bonus of your idea being an original and unique one. E. B White, author of Charlotte’s Web once said that “genius is more often found in a cracked pot than a whole one.” It is by far one of the most interesting quotes I’ve come across in quite some time because of of what I believe it means as it relates to self awareness.
When making the comparison between a cracked pot and a whole one some might think that a cracked pot is flawed while the whole pot looks like perfection. However perception is in the eye of the beholder. And to me I think a cracked pot shows character. It shows grit and resilience. I think what E.B. White meant was that being a genius is not without its flaws. It has the innate ability to still flower even when the conditions of the soil may not be perfect. Creativity is not born out of perfection but rather through out of the box thinking and imperfect attempts until we discover our niche. Besides when you have a cracked pot, the roots of a flower are given a little more wiggle room to let itself grow because the crack is an outlet for that flower’s roots to expand. I think this is a lot like what creativity has to offer when given that same outlet within each of us: imagination and originality; whereas a whole pot restricts a flower’s roots from growing and it becomes more so predictable. Now which one would you rather be? A cracked pot or a whole one?
What does this quote mean to you and how can you apply today’s message towards improving your self awareness?
To subscribe to the daily blog via email please go to our website:
https://our-moral-compass.com/
To subscribe to the podcast please go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Music from https://filmmusic.io
“Relaxing Piano Music” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
A special thank you to Feedspot for recognizing the Our Moral Compass podcast as one of the Top 10 Social Emotional Learning Podcasts on the internet. It is an honor to be amongst the other podcasts on this list as we all strive to make this world a better place.
Becoming The Change 