A group of graduates from a prestigious university, successful, achieving great carriers, came to visit their old professor. During the visit the conversation turned to work: graduates were complaining about countless difficulties and problems of life.
After offering the guest coffee, professor went to the kitchen and came back with a coffee pot and a tray, crowded with many different cups: porcelain, glass, plastic and crystalline. Some were simple, others expensive.
When the graduates picked out the cups, professor said:
- Notice, how all the beautiful cups were picked out, and the simple and cheap ones were left. And although it seems normal for you – wanting only best things for yourself, but that is the source of your problems and stress. You need to understand, that the cup doesn’t make the coffee better. Most of the time it’s only more expensive, but sometimes it is hiding what we are drinking. Actually, all that you wanted was only coffee, not the cup. But you consciously picked the best cups, and later watched what kind of cups others got.
And now think: life – is coffee, and job, money, position, society – are the cups. They are only instruments for maintenance and upkeep of life. The type of cup we have, doesn’t determine the quality of our life. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cups, we forget to enjoy the taste of coffee. The happiest people are not those who have the best things, but those who retrieve everything that is best from what they have.