Independent Thoughts [alnaim.com]

Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of "crackpot" than the stigma of conformity. -- Thomas J. Watson, Sr.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

FW: Enjoy the coffee

Very nice message, I thank my friend Ali Al-Saif for forwarding it to me.

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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 the students 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."

 

So please, don't let the cups drive you...enjoy the coffee

 

posted by Abdulaziz Alnaim @ 4:43 PM    

2 Comments:

  • At 9:36 PM , deemza said...

    I totally agree with the enjoying the coffee part…
    But sometimes I come to think that wanting the best is a part of being human…
    The coffee vs the cup part is the same as saying that character is more important than looks…Well they both r important (and in some social events looks r more important believe me)
    and saying that a job titles or doing better then other people doesn’t matter would be a lye … because from where I stand ppl thrive on feeling superior or better then others … its wrong I know but I think it’s a part of being human.

     

  • At 7:34 PM , Abdulaziz Alnaim said...

    i dont agree that it is part of being human. I think we are conditioned by society to think or act in certain way and we are free only if we can break away from the biases that society builds into us.. with an open mind, we can see that a lot of the things we do make ABSOLUTELY no sense and that we are causing ourselves so much avoidable pain..

     

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