There's always time...

My inbox is full to the brink with junkmail - Tickle newsletters, Friendster reminders and message alerts, even threatening e-mails, and annoying chain letters. Allow me to digress a little here. The fools who think these ridiculous e-mails up are bad enough, you could even pity them f0r having such a sucky life, but worse are those that believe in these stupid things and send it around to torment every person in their address book. "Send this e-mail to 20 people and you will have good luck for a year"; "Forward this to 15 people and your crush will ask you out". Think of responding to such statements!! Are these people so despairing as to resort to such idiotically fruitless measures as these? Or are they merely out of their minds? Frankly, for their sakes, I would pray for the latter. To all those repeat chain mail suckers out there - if you want to go out with someone, take the tried and tested route and ask the person out. And there's no such thing as luck - good or bad - (although we do seem to pin an awful lot of our daily lives on them) just good, honest hard work and those too lazy to carry it out. So next time one of them doggone chain letters comes along, hit 'delete', and whatever you do, please please don't forward them to me.

OK wait a minute, that wasn't the reason for this post. Forgive the rant. What I was going to say was that amidst all this trash, there sometimes lies buried little gold nuggets of wisdom. This one I just had to share with everyone. Here's the story I found:

The mayonnaise jar and the 2 cups of coffee

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 cups of coffee...

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items 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 cups of coffee 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 God, 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 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. 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 coffee 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 cups of coffee with a friend."

=p I'm always up for a visit to Starbucks!