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Stone,pebble And Sand

Discussion in 'Snippets of Life (Non-Fiction)' started by jayasala42, Mar 19, 2017.

  1. jayasala42

    jayasala42 IL Hall of Fame

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    Every one is desirous of being happy,but many don't know how to make it possible.In our enthusiasm we tap at the wrong doors or travel in wrong paths leading s nowhere.
    A professor of philosophy was taking class.He brought an empty jar and kept it on table.He filled the jar with one cubic inch stone.The jar filled in soon.
    Next he brought small pebbles and put them into the jar.Small pebbles filled the cavity in between the bigger stones.The jar seemed almost full. Now the professor brought a packet of sand and slowly slipped the sand into the jar. Lo;the jar could hold the entire sand.Small particles of sand occupied the tiny spaces between stones and pebbles.

    The professor explained:Our life is comparable to a jar.The big stones are like essential things in life taking care of health, family and children.Small pebbles represent job, house and car.
    The sand is comparable to unessential things in life.
    Suppose we fill the jar first with sand, there won't be hardly any space either for pebbles or bigger stones.If we spend our time and energy on unnecessary things, we won't have time
    or capability to attend to essentials.Our life will be filled with sand and we may not be able to welcome or enjoy even precious gems when they arrive at our doors.
    Many of us become slaves to our jobs, concentrate on job and promotion so much, that we don't have quality time with spouse or children.The lust for chair, encomia by CMD and appreciation letters, awards and posing for photos while winning awards occupy our minds for ever.Sharing of birth day wishes, appreciating the child for her performance never bother us.
    We have seen many regret about their folly in later years.

    But it is not so easy to come out of lust for power and position so easily.The process is not as simple as filling the jar with stones,though the simile looks great.
    Many people are smart enough to perceive these things.But they don't know how to become the man they want to be.
    The struggle is to distinguisn between the important and the unimportant.So many sermons have been preached and books have been written categorising events into four categories-
    urgent and important
    Not urgent but important
    urgent and not important
    not urgent and not important.

    The first one needs some intelligent planning and can be made habitual.Actually ,the second one ,which seems to be not at all urgent is the sphere one has to concentrate and it is the aspect of care,love and affection to family members with reciprocal feelings -the resultant product being joy and happiness.The third one is like responding to e-mails, expressing our likes and we mostly tend to spend many hours out of social compulsions.Last one may relate to watching useless programmes,wiling away time in video games or indulge oneself in whatsapp.
    No doubt urgent important tasks may provide scope for long term mission.But on many occasions we fall into the trap of believing that all urgent jobs are important too.The modern techies too have this engrained mental set up.'Live in the present'-motto seems to have a wrong influence of giving'present shock'-a condition in which we live always'on-now' and lose our focus.This may be termed'priority blindness'-which has affected many youngsters.Many of us have an inclination to do whatever is pressing at the moment.

    It is this human weakness that is taken advantage of by corporates in fixing unrealistic time bound targets.More or less it is our default mode that we don't get motivated to do anything unless a dead line looms large over our heads.


    Since activities that are very important but not urgent are not pressing our attention,we tend to keep them in the back burner kept for tomorrow--which will never dawn at all.We have to be intentional and proactive to detach ourselves from the present inherent bias and catch hold of'some-other day' activities and mark them for today.

    Let us hope that we choose our correct priority not withstanding the imposition, dead line etc etc and develop the mental ,emotional wherewithal to respond positively rather than to react defensively.Throw away the sand particles and avail the opportunity to be gifted with diamonds.

    Jayasala 42
     
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  2. girvani

    girvani Platinum IL'ite

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    Dear Jaya Amma

    It made me think a lot about my daily schedule. Thank you so much for this post. I can see how I easily get defeated by doing 3rd type of an activity instead 2. It really made me analyse.

    Thank you
    Vani
     
    jayasala42 likes this.
  3. jayasala42

    jayasala42 IL Hall of Fame

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    Thank you, Girvani for your reply.If we don't fix up our prerogative properly,we may land ourselves in a big dilemma ,as many unessential things may get automatically included in
    our routine list making us desperate.

    jayasala 42
     
    girvani likes this.
  4. EnlightenedSoul

    EnlightenedSoul IL Hall of Fame

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    [QPERFECTLYayasala42, post: 3956281, member: 316301"]Every one is desirous of being happy,but many don't know how to make it possible.In our enthusiasm we tap at the wrong doors or travel in wrong paths leading s nowhere.
    A professor of philosophy was taking class.He brought an empty jar and kept it on table.He filled the jar with one cubic inch stone.The jar filled in soon.
    Next he brought small pebbles and put them into the jar.Small pebbles filled the cavity in between the bigger stones.The jar seemed almost full. Now the professor brought a packet of sand and slowly slipped the sand into the jar. Lo;the jar could hold the entire sand.Small particles of sand occupied the tiny spaces between stones and pebbles.

    The professor explained:Our life is comparable to a jar.The big stones are like essential things in life taking care of health, family and children.Small pebbles represent job, house and car.
    The sand is comparable to unessential things in life.
    Suppose we fill the jar first with sand, there won't be hardly any space either for pebbles or bigger stones.If we spend our time and energy on unnecessary things, we won't have time
    or capability to attend to essentials.Our life will be filled with sand and we may not be able to welcome or enjoy even precious gems when they arrive at our doors.
    Many of us become slaves to our jobs, concentrate on job and promotion so much, that we don't have quality time with spouse or children.The lust for chair, encomia by CMD and appreciation letters, awards and posing for photos while winning awards occupy our minds for ever.Sharing of birth day wishes, appreciating the child for her performance never bother us.
    We have seen many regret about their folly in later years.

    But it is not so easy to come out of lust for power and position so easily.The process is not as simple as filling the jar with stones,though the simile looks great.
    Many people are smart enough to perceive these things.But they don't know how to become the man they want to be.
    The struggle is to distinguisn between the important and the unimportant.So many sermons have been preached and books have been written categorising events into four categories-
    urgent and important
    Not urgent but important
    urgent and not important
    not urgent and not important.

    The first one needs some intelligent planning and can be made habitual.Actually ,the second one ,which seems to be not at all urgent is the sphere one has to concentrate and it is the aspect of care,love and affection to family members with reciprocal feelings -the resultant product being joy and happiness.The third one is like responding to e-mails, expressing our likes and we mostly tend to spend many hours out of social compulsions.Last one may relate to watching useless programmes,wiling away time in video games or indulge oneself in whatsapp.
    No doubt urgent important tasks may provide scope for long term mission.But on many occasions we fall into the trap of believing that all urgent jobs are important too.The modern techies too have this engrained mental set up.'Live in the present'-motto seems to have a wrong influence of giving'present shock'-a condition in which we live always'on-now' and lose our focus.This may be termed'priority blindness'-which has affected many youngsters.Many of us have an inclination to do whatever is pressing at the moment.

    It is this human weakness that is taken advantage of by corporates in fixing unrealistic time bound targets.More or less it is our default mode that we don't get motivated to do anything unless a dead line looms large over our heads.


    Since activities that are very important but not urgent are not pressing our attention,we tend to keep them in the back burner kept for tomorrow--which will never dawn at all.We have to be intentional and proactive to detach ourselves from the present inherent bias and catch hold of'some-other day' activities and mark them for today.

    Let us hope that we choose our correct priority not withstanding the imposition, dead line etc etc and develop the mental ,emotional wherewithal to respond positively rather than to react defensively.Throw away the sand particles and avail the opportunity to be gifted with diamonds.

    Jayasala 42[/QUOTE]
    ""PERFECTLY TRUE!!"
     
  5. jayasala42

    jayasala42 IL Hall of Fame

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    Thank you for the response,@enlightened soul
    jayasala 42
     

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