TWO GLASSES OF WINE

One thing I always like to ask folks who seems really stressed out about this or that is will what you are doing now going to really matter in a year from now? What is it that you do were this time last year that had you worried or stressed, and does that same event matter you now? Most of what we deal with in life is generally the small stuff and at the end of the day, there is no real reason to sweat the small stuff.

Here is something I got from my parents that I thought I would share with you all. As a person's whose professional career just got back on track after a few years without clear direction, it is always important to remember to take a few moments, or more, to remember the things that are really important in life:

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 glasses of wine theory...

A professor stood before his philosophy class with some items on his desk in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "YES."

The professor then produced two glasses of wine from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things; your family, your children, your health, your friends,and your favorite passions; things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house,and your car.

The sand is everything else; the small stuff. If you put the sand into the jar first", he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the good things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18 holes. Do one more rundown the ski slope. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first; the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the wine represented. The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of glasses of wine with a friend."

Share this with someone you care about... I just did

Today is a great day

This was orignially posted on 2/16/06, and still seems appropriate, with some slight modifications for the times:

Today is a great day!!

Today is the first day of the new baseball season when Pitchers and Catchers report.

It is almost like the you can feel the winter coming to an end (in spite of yesterdays rain and snow) and a warm breeze is blowing in your face. It is the smell in the air, and the pop as a ball hits a mitt.

Pitchers and Catchers reporting has a magically sound to the ears. Like birds singing this morning in the back yard, since they too must know that spring is almost sprung. All teams start today with an equal chance, a clean record, last year removed from memory, and just like spring itself, they are ready to bloom anew.

Everything is fresh and clean, with no scent of scandal. No more football, no HGH, no more salary arbitration or free agent signings, and no more hypodermic needles in a bag. The steroid hearings are happening in Washington DC, and it doesn't matter. Pitchers and Catchers report today and everything is going to be alright again since baseball is now back.

Today is a great day!!

The Gettysburg Address: Abraham Lincoln Nov 19, 1863

So Short and sweet and yet so poignent so many years later:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Happy 199th Birthday President Lincoln