Coffee & Cup

A group of ex-students, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old school teacher. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the teacher went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the teacher 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 best cups and were 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."

Moral lesson

• Don't let the cups drive you crazy, Enjoy the coffee instead.
• Work is fun. Enjoy your work. Don't get unnecessary stressed up by what or how others think, feel or say.
• Adding some milk or sugar to coffee will be nice. Do welcome constructive ideas.
  
• It is you who enjoy the coffee. So don't let anyone or anything spoil it.
• Enjoy!