【轻阅读，看世界】What do you think of life?

铅笔英语，每晚睡前故事。

看世界人生百态，品人间真情冷暖。

多一种语言，多一个纬度，多一段故事。

I bought my wife a 24K gold bangle when we were in India. Beautiful, yellower-than-a-daisy and bright-as-the-sun kind of thing.

She was delighted.

One day our whirlwind-of-a-son gets hold of it. He twirls it around in his fingers, holds it up to the light, brings it to his mouth, and before we can stop him...

Sinks his teeth right into it.

The thing was so soft that it now has tooth-shaped indentations all around.

A jeweler would have to melt it down and work it back into shape if we wanted it restored to its former glory.

But if that gold bangle had had just a bit more zinc, copper, and nickel added to it, it’d be tough enough that you couldn’t bite into it.

And, you could still call it gold.

But if you added too many other elements, it wouldn’t be gold anymore.

That got me thinking.

If you’re too pure, you lack grit. You end up being so soft that life’ll chew right through you.

But if you’re too impure, you lose your luster. You end up being such a formless mishmash that there’s no telling you’re you.

So the question is—

How do you maintain enough purity while also allowing yourself to become worldly, to mix with the dirt of life, to be both hard and bright?