Once there were two sisters, one older, one younger. They had the same hair, the same eyes, the same smile. The hair was their grandmother's, their eyes belonged to their father. No one knew where the smile came from.
They grew up together in the same house, eating the same food and borrowing each other's clothes. Their parents read them the same bedtime stories, most of which began and ended the same way all bedtime stories begin and end.
They were the same in every way. But somehow they learned different lessons.
One sister, the older, learned to scrimp and save and put money by. She liked sparkle at first, because sparkles were a sign of opulence, until she realized that sparkles are actually a sign of low-class, and she couldn't bear to be low-class. She came to appreciate brown leather, and excellent design, and beautiful, understated details, though she would not be able to say if her taste for these things were because she herself liked them or because she knew that she should. She didn't want to be desperate, even though the more money she saved, the more desperate she became.
The other, the younger, focused on other people. She collected stories and remembered conversations. If you asked her now about things a person she hadn't seen in years, she could recite, word for word, the last conversation they had shared. In some cases, she can probably do the first conversation, or the second, or the third. This sister valued people, not only for the beauty she saw in them, the happiness the very presence of people inspired within her, but also, secretly, ever-so-shamefully, for the way that people seemed to love her.
The elder sister was not yet cold, but she needed money to make her feel safe.
The younger sister was not unworldly, but she needed affection to make her happy.
No one told them that they could have both. They themselves didn't learn that lesson until they had already decided it was too late.
One day, when the sisters had grown up and it was time for them to leave their parents house, they hugged each other tightly and went off to seek their fortunes.
But that is a story for a different day.