The Eggs

The Eggs

There was a boy who was employed to carry eggs from the chicken coops at one end of a farm to the farmer's wife in her kitchen at the other end.  As the chickens laid eggs very slowly, he decided that it would be best to transport the eggs one at a time. And so whenever a chicken laid an egg, the boy put the egg in his basket and took it to the farmer.s wife.
He went on quite well until, one day, he stumbled on a rock. The egg rolled out of the basket, onto the ground and broke. The boy picked up all the broken pieces of shell, scooped up the gooey insides along with the dirt they had fallen on and put it all back in his basket. Then he went back to wait for the chickens to lay the next egg.
Unfortunately, the broken eggshells took up a lot of room in the basket and so the boy had to balance the next egg on top of the pile. Sure enough, the new egg slipped out of the basket before he reached the farmer's wife. So again, he picked up all the eggshells, scooped up all the other stuff and put it all back in his basket. Luckily, the chickens had laid another egg and so he carefully placed the egg on top of the pile and went on his way.
This time he walked veeeeerrrrry slooooowwwwly and carefully and he made it all the way into the yard by the kitchen door before the egg tumbled to the ground.  By this time the poor boy was quite upset and he began to cry very loudly. So loudly, that the farmer's wife came outside and asked the boy what the matter was.
"I was carrying an egg to you but it broke" he said, "so I put all the pieces back in the basket and went back for more eggs. They all broke too."  So I had to go back again, and again but by this time my basket was so full of eggshells and egg-insides that every egg I put in there fell out." and he sniffled and wiped away a tear.
"Oh dear",. said the farmer's wife. "This wont do at all."
So she emptied the basket full of egg into the slops heap for the pigs, and wiped it clean with the corner of her apron.  Then, she handed the basket back to the boy.
"There, there now, don't feel bad dear.", she smiled. "You see that even your broken eggs had a use, and your basket is now clean enough to fit more of the perfect ones."
The boy thanked her very much and left for the chicken coops again with his clean, empty basket. Along the way, he sang a little song:

"Out with the old to make room for the new!
That's how I work, and you should too!
Else you end up with egg on you!"

The moral of the story is more than "Don't put all your eggs in one basket."
When we make a mistake, many of us gather up the pieces of that mistake and carry them with us. The problem is that filling ourselves up with the remnants of past mistakes by bringing them up over and over again leaves us little room in our "baskets" for new experiences. Best to admit to the mistake, let it go and move on. If we find a way to make use of what we've learned then so much the better!