I saw an interesting experiment not long ago. A jeweler friend of mine was showing two objects to a lady customer. One was rather dull, jagged and ugly, the other appeared to be a gem of great value for it shone and glittered and it was beautiful. He asked her which she liked to have. Naturally she said she'd like the beautiful gem. He then told her it was a $40 zircon, a cheaper stone that looked like a diamond but had few of the diamonds’ exceptional qualities. The other stone was a diamond, but it was uncut and unpolished. In spite of the fact it was worth 100 times more than the brilliant zircon. I thought to myself how typical of humans. Isn't it true that few of us fail to recognize a diamond in the rough. We don't want it. We will not except it even if it's forced upon us. We want the glitter, the polish, the show. We don't really care much about values just as long as we make an impression. And so we surround ourselves with ostentation. The planned obsolescence of our rocket-festooned, chrome plated cars, our gee-whiz designed washing and drying machines, our "right today - old tomorrow" refrigerators and hundreds of other gadgets with which we clutter up our lives eats away endlessly at our pocketbooks and form their cancers on our souls. We have learned only price and forgotten value. It's ever onward and upward with Benzedrine to bounce and Seconol to sleep and pass the bottle when you get dry.
I talked to a brilliant young minister of the gospel the other day and he told me the only subject he couldn't speak on was "peace of mind". There must be a lesson in there somewhere but who among us will slow up long enough to discover what it might be?
What do I want most in life? Some of the subject matter my friend couldn't speak about. A little tranquility, some simplicity and recognition of value without reference to price. Call me a dreamer. You would think in 37 years I'd have learned we are all either valued too highly or not highly enough. We are never taken at our real worth.
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