January 2, 2015
Large Glass Jar
I heard a wonderful little story the other day and thought I would share it with you.
A Professor stands in front of his Philosophy class on the first day of a new semester.
There is a Large glass jar on the desk in front of him. He proceeds to fill the jar with golf balls right to the top. He asks his class if the jar is full? They reply with a unanimous “yes”. He then pours a box of pebbles into the jar that fill in the spaces between the golf balls and again asks is the jar full? Another unanimous “yes”. He then pours a small bag of sand into the jar which fills the remaining crevices between the golf balls and the pebbles. Now is the Jar full now? “yes”.
He tells his class that the jar represents their lives. The golf balls represent family, children, health, friends and passions. The pebbles represent things that matter, your home, your car and your employment. The sand represents all of the other small stuff in your life.
If you fill your jar with sand (small stuff) first, there will be no room for anything else, especially the golf balls (family,children,friends and passions) and the pebbles (home, car and employment).
The bottom line is we should be paying attention to the golf balls first, and then the pebbles. We should be ignoring the sand altogether as that is just wasting time.
I cannot help but think that I spent way to much time worrying about the sand and the pebbles? How about you?
Ken Flaska
