Wisdom

I had no idea so many of my friends were reading my blog! That is so awesome! It is a good motivator to be sure to keep it as updated as possible. I learned some things in class on Thursday that I thought were worth posting to pass on to others. One is a story that some of you may have heard already but I will post that in a few minutes. There are a few small nuggets of knowledge that are worth remembering. The first is that there are two kinds of people: those who do things and those who have things done to them.I am trying to make sure that I am the kind who does things, which is one of the reasons I am in grad school in the first place. And then maybe I can help the second kind of people.
Another piece is regarding death. The approach we were learning (existential) says that instead of fearing death you need to get busy living. It's because of death that you have something to live for. Without an end there would be infinite time and we wouldn't get much done knowing that we had tomorrow. And then the third piece was about how if you approach your anxiety you will have they potential for growth. I know that sounds very psychological, but it helped me when thinking of my own anxieties.
Now to the story that I thought was worth passing on. It was about a mayonaise jar and two cups of coffee. I won't type out the whole story b/c I am sure you can find it elsewhere, but the gist of it is that a professor brought in golf balls, pebbles, sand and two cups of coffee and put them in the jar in that order. After putting in each component he asked the students if they thought the jar was full and they would respond with yes and then he would fill it with the next thing(indicating it wasn't really full). Afterwards he told what each of the things in the jar represented. This part is what I wanted to relay. The golf balls represent what matters most to you that would remain if everything else was lost. The pebbles represent the smaller things, like your job, house, car, etc. The sand represents the small stuff. It was put in the jar in that order b/c if you did not put the golf balls in first, but rather put in the pebbles or sand first, then the golf balls would not fit. And the point is that if you spend all of your time on all of the small stuff, you won't have room for the stuff that matters. So take care of the golf balls first, all the rest is sand.

And the coffee that was poured in the jar at the end was to show that no matter how full you think your jar of life is, there is always room for a cup of coffee or two with a friend. I think that is important to remember when life gets so hectic that we shut ourselves away and don't think we have time for anything else.

I was very moved by that story and felt compelled to share it in my blog.
Another thing I learned in the approach we discussed was that if you are moving towards something that is meaningful, you can endure the pain that comes along with it. That is something that I hope to keep in mind while I am in graduate school b/c hopefully it will get me through the times ahead.

That's all I have time for tonight b/c one of my golf balls is here for the weekend and I need to spend my time there.