The Potter and the Apprentice There was once a great potter who had shaped clay since his youth.
In his early years, he worked fast — eager to fill the shelves with cups, bowls, and vases.
The market loved him.
Coins clinked in his pouch.
His days passed in a blur of spinning wheels and drying clay. But in his haste, the rims were uneven, the bases wobbled, the glaze sometimes cracked.
He did not notice; he was too busy making more. Decades flowed like water.
His hands grew slower, his hair silver.
One evening, as the sun set behind the hills, he was shaping a single bowl — not for the market, not for anyone else, just for himself. He took his time.
His palms pressed with care, the way the river smooths a stone.
The curve of the bowl was perfect, the glaze deep as the night sky.
For the first time, he saw the beauty of his craft. And he laughed — a soft, wistful laugh.
“This,” he thought, “is how I should have worked all along.” But the years left were few.
The shelves were full of things made in haste. That night, a young apprentice came to him.
The potter placed the perfect bowl in the apprentice’s hands.
“Do not wait,” he said.
“The wisdom I found at the end was always here, in my hands — but I was too busy rushing to feel it.
Shape each day as if it were the last piece you will ever make.” The apprentice kept that bowl his whole life, never selling it.
It was not just a vessel — it was a reminder:
Wisdom is not a prize for the old.
It is the inheritance of anyone willing to slow down and listen before the years have fled.
And if you begin now, your hands will shape not just clay, but a life so full, it will outlast the years themselves.
