A group of young professionals, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.
Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite- telling them to help themselves to the coffee.
When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: 'If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.
Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups... And then you began eyeing each other's cups.
Now consider this: Life is the coffee; the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, and the type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of Life we live.
Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee life has provided us. 'Life brews the coffee, not the cups.........
Enjoy your coffee!
Thursday, August 16, 2007
a quick thought.
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6 comments:
dab. after re-using my rei plastic cup a bazillion times day after day all day, i've noticed a certain lack of heinous funk when i use a porcelin cup and switch mid day to hot water, tea, or cold water with the same cup. plastic cups retain the funk of coffee.
also, how else can i convey to others that "guns do not kill people, i do" ? if i just come out and say it versus relying on the subtlties of my cup's notice, am i not being TOO threatening?
and what about my "badass mutha_____a" wallet?
i suppose there is something wrong with that too, huh?
finally: the professor's metaphor would be best if all the nicest mugs had cracks in them so the coffee scalded all the students. then the lurking horrors of each choice would haunt these fools with the immediacy instead of only after years of aggregated freeze-thaw cycles resulting on one chaotic breach.
i said "a quick thought."
good post Andy.
Andy, may i please have directions to kevin's problem "fish out of water"? sounds like a great problem and i would love to check it out this year.
shoot me an email @ amann@yama-studio.com
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