Let’s end July with a little reality pinch. Enjoy this story . . . . .
A group of alumni, 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 hot 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 but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.
What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups and were eyeing each other’s cups.’
‘Now if life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life, but the quality of life doesn’t change. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it.’
So, don’t let the cups drive you . . . . . enjoy the coffee instead.
image from: lekhaharidas.wordpress.com
A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. ‘What food might this contain?’ the mouse wondered.
Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning. ‘There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!’
The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, ‘Mr. Mouse, I can see that this is a grave concern to you, but is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.’
The pig sympathized but said, ‘I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.’
The farmer rushed her to the hospital . . . . .
Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient.
So the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn’t concern you, remember: When one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in this journey called ‘life’. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another.
