A Cup of Coffee

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old University lecturer. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the lecturer went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups(?) porcelain, plastic, glass, some plain-looking and some expensive and exquisite, telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.

When all of them had a cup of coffee in hand, the lecturer 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 better cups and are 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."

Thanks to Rain for this one. :-)

Comments

rain said…
I guess it's just normal that we would want best things happening in our lives but sometimes we are blinded by our desires...and makes us less appreciative of what we already have. May you want more and still appreciate those that come, even if they fell short of our expectations. :-)
January 20, 2006 9:27 AM
TK said…
there are different kinds of cups. there are different kinds of lives. sometimes it's not just a cup, because the cup itself defines the kind of life we want to live.

that's why we are choosy about the kind of cup we want to drink coffee from. right or wrong.

I guess it's like the cliche "the medium is the message."
January 20, 2006 12:08 PM
Ronald Allan said…
Who would have thought that there would be so much insight in a mere cup?

:-)
January 23, 2006 10:37 PM
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