Ok, so one of my BFFs (yes, I have more than one, but don't tell THEM!) sent this little cutsie story to me about hot chocolate and the cup, blah blah blah. I really don't like those things cluttering my inbox, but I actually liked this one! So, here it is (a little chopped up to make it shorter) for all (me) to read:
A group of graduates decided to go visit their old university professor. The conversation soon turned to complaints about stress in their work and lives. The professor went into his kitchen and returned with a large pot of hot chocolate and an assortment of cups - porcelain, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling his former students to help themselves to the hot chocolate.
When they all had a cup of hot chocolate in hand, the professor said, "Notice that all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken, 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. The cup that you're drinking from adds nothing to the quality of the hot chocolate. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was hot chocolate, not the cup; but you went for the best cups... and then you began eyeing each other's cups.
Here is the lesson: Life is the hot chocolate; your job, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life. The cup you have does not define, nor change the quality of life you have.
See, I want to have a nicer cup - one with four big wheels, and a Toyota or Lexus insignia on the back, but the reality is that I don't have the ability to buy anything nicer than a plastic cup from IKEA, or a paper cup from Walmart. The important thing to remember is that any cup (as long as it is clean) is ok for me to use to savor my hot choco. Let's see if I can take this further... um, ya, I can savor my hot cho-co-lah-tay in a paper cup on the beach if I want to, right? I can take my cup anywhere! I mean, imagine the small paper cup with the hot stuff in it (wax melting on the outside) cruising on a Disney cruise ship out in the Caribbean. Ya ya, that's it!
Wait... I think I have gone overboard (no pun intended). I guess the whole idea of this story is that we are supposed to look INSIDE of the cup, right? We all have the same good stuff on the inside, we just "get" to enjoy it from different holders. Ok, so I need to enjoy it no matter what the cup looks like. But, I can still want to take the cup somewhere fun, right?
Is sarcasm always negative? Is negative always bad? Isn't it funny sometimes?
Eeek, now the "cup half full" scenario comes to mind, which means that the hot chocolate story can be taken even further. BUT... I am going to stop. I have to continue to figure out how to use a database (see previous post).
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2 comments:
The analogy of the Hot Chocolate in the CUPS was eloquent and to the point...I am left wondering tho, what YOU thot of it. How important to us is the Lexus or the Cruise? I wrote on a BBoard once were we were asked to tell about ourselves...I started to do that about five times...but finally just gave up. Instead I told about a man in my neighborhood who had MD...that I felt compelled to help. I thot I had done a wonderful job of honoring him...until one lady on the board who had gone into great detail about herself became offended by a comment on my entry, and left the group... All it said was...This entry tells more about YOU than anything anyone else has written... My friend's name was Alvin...He died a few years later and a man said to me... For what you did for him, your reward will be great in heaven...To which I replied...he came along and was my friend at a time when I lost everything. He saved gave me something to focus on besides my misery...because of that I didn't lose my wife, my family, my sanity..maybe even my own life...I am the one who got everything not him. My life during the time I thot I was helping him was in my hands cupped together. I had lost everything I had no porcelain or even a plastic cup, just my hands, and a friend who needed to drink of life almost as bad as I did...
What I wrote had this general tone... http://thotmannn.wordpress.com/2005/08/30/67-alvin-has-moved-on/
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