Lessons From An Oyster

Honestly, I am not a huge poem-type of guy. It’s not that I don’t like to read them…I just don’t read many of them. That being said, I found this poem a while ago about an oyster that demonstrated to me that there are always lessons to learn and apply to our everyday lives. It is a tremendous poem which will make you think how to deal with a problem the next time something “gets under your skin.”  

Lessons from an Oyster

There once was an oyster
Whose story I tell,
Who found that some sand
Had got into his shell.

It was only a grain,
but it gave him great pain.
For oysters have feelings
Although they’re so plain.

Now, did he berate
the harsh workings of fate
That had brought him
To such a deplorable state?

Did he curse at the government,
Cry for election,
And claim that the sea should
Have given him protection?

‘No,’ he said to himself
As he lay on a shell,
Since I cannot remove it,
I shall try to improve it.

Now the years have rolled around,
As the years always do,
And he came to his ultimate
Destiny ­ stew.

And the small grain of sand
That had bothered him so
Was a beautiful pearl
All richly aglow.

Now the tale has a moral,
for isn’t it grand
What an oyster can do
With a morsel of sand?

What couldn’t we do
If we’d only begin
With some of the things
That get under our skin.