"I'd rather be a diamond with a flaw, than a perfect pebble!" That's a quote by Confucius. The meaning of this one seems pretty straight forward to me, but many people seem to get confused by it.
Since that is the case, let's walk through it, starting at its simplest meaning and then walk our way up to how I see it. At the base level Confucius is saying that he would rather have something special, yet not perfect rather than something simple and yet flawless. In the instance of a diamond and a pebble, diamond's are more rare and seemingly more pleasing to the eye than an ordinary pebble. In fact, no matter how flawless the pebble, most people would still rather look at or receive the flawed diamond. This holds true for everything by the way. Think about the food you eat. Would you rather have a meal that has some spice added? Or would you rather eat bland, tasteless food? Now think about people. Would you rather meet someone who is very interesting but a little flawed in one or two areas, or a person who is a perfect bore? I don't know about you, but I sometimes think that is our little flaws that make us interesting to begin with. I'll give you a good example. I know a very sweet girl who is pretty and very witty. She is fine holding up her end of the conversation until you look her in the eye and smile about what she is saying. The minute you do that, she'll continue with her story, but her eyes kind of roll up in her head like a school girl reciting poetry! She'll open her eyes again, of course, but the minute she sees you smiling at her story, her eyes just go back up into the back of her head. To be clear here, I called her a girl, but that is in relation to me. She is probably in her mid 30's. Anyway, I find that eye roll very endearing and i find many of her stories amusing in spite of whether or not they really are or not. Sometimes the flaw makes the diamond. So, would you rather have a flawed diamond as a friend, or a perfect pebble? For me, I'd rather have the special with the flaw than the perfect...bore!
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