If at all anything good that Covid taught us, it is nothing other than what are the real priorities in life. It reminded us that our health matters, and our family matters. Taking time for ourselves matters. But as always, when the claws of Covid became less tight, we started forgetting the lessons also. We are such brainy people who behave like we lost our brains most of the time!
A person with a brain prioritises his health over working hard for a company to earn money even without taking care of himself, finally spending all his money on medicine!
Here is why differentiating real priorities of life from what you ‘think’ as the priorities are of great importance! That differentiation will help you to lead a much more meaningful life.
The Story of Rocks, Pebbles, and Sand
The best example to make this point go straight into your heart is the story of rocks, pebbles, and sand! I know this may be a repetition but worth it.
Once a Philosophy professor entered the class with a big jar. He showed the class the empty jar and started putting big pieces of rocks into the same. Once there was no space for any more rock pieces, he asked the class if the jar was full. The students replied, “yes.”
Then he took a small bag of pebbles and started putting them one by one into the jar. Soon there was no space to add more stone pieces, and the teacher repeated his question. The students replied, “Yes, the jar is full now.”
Then he took a small bag of sand and started pouring the same into the jar. The jar was able to hold the whole of it. The teacher repeated his question, and the students replied, “Yes, this time it is indeed full.”
Some versions of this story have a 4th element, water also involved, but here I am stopping with sand.
The Rock – Your most important priorities in life
The rocks represent all that help us to create a meaningful and happy life.
Our health – physical, mental, and spiritual
Our family – mainly our parents, spouse, and children
When we are strong on these two points, if we lose everything else, there is a chance of regaining all that and living happily again. These are the strongest pillars of our life.
In other words, these are the wall on which we draw the picture called life! So first, filling the jar with them is the best option, isn’t so?
The pebbles – The priorities in life which support the “Rocks.”
These are the elements which help us to have a comfortable life like our job, our hobbies or passions, our friends and relatives. The nature of these elements is they are not permanent or gets changing.
These pebbles add more meaning to our life. But if you ask me, can we live without them for some time, of course, yes.
The most important thing here is, from a long-term perspective, we are not supposed to compromise our rocks for these pebbles!
The Sand – Let us look at this from a different viewpoint.
In the above story, the sand represents all that is least important in your life. They are more like fillers like small tasks or time spent on social media or television, etc.
But I would like to look at this from a different perspective too. I call this sand all that take out our focus on the rock and the pebbles. The small stuff over which we sweat a lot but which don’t mean anything when we look back after a year.
The anger we felt when someone overtook us at the toll gate, the tension we felt when our maid took a day off unexpectedly, or the stress of not something happening as planned. Even without our knowledge, these sand particles decide the quality of our day!!
The anger, tension, or stress gets carried with us everywhere we go on that day. Most of the time, the scapegoats for showing our frustration will be our spouse or kids! And all this stress and anger impact our health in many ways, we all know.
Have you realised now how the small sand particle is strong enough to hurt our rocks?? So imagine the situation when we first fill the jar with all sand!!!
Don’t Sweat the small stuff!
What comes to my mind right away is the title of the book by Richard Carlson ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff, and It’s all small stuff.’ What a meaningful line!! That is it – they are all small stuff not going to affect your life in any way. (By the way, the book is a good read if you want to try it.)
If someone overtakes you at the toll gate, you may escape the next traffic signal without waiting because of the few seconds lost here. If the maid has not come for a day, your unused muscles may get some work. Or keeping some work pending for the next day will not turn the house upside down. If everything happens to our plans, what thrill in life, right?
So let us try to see the good in the not-so-good moments. Not easy, but doing it day in and out will make it easier than you imagine.
The war between Rocks and Pebbles
I can feel that you will have a question now, “Mercy, you mentioned job and friends as pebbles. Arent they rocks?”
No, they are not permanent rocks like your health and family. But whether they are more important than your family and your health is a wise decision you make each time.
Suppose it is a family get-together and all your family has been eagerly waiting for this to happen. But you get a call from a hospital that your friend has been admitted there because of an accident. If his parents are not around, the wise decision is to go and take care of him since the get-together can happen later also. But if it is your marriage day, I don’t dare to say go and take care of your friend. Instead, you can ask someone else.
It is the same with your job also. When your project is at its peak, doing overtime for some days is fine. But making that a routine by ignoring health and not spending quality time with family is unacceptable.
The wise decision on what is the right priorities in life
An intentional decision is what is going to make all the changes. The reason is – without training, our brain tends to pick up the sands more than rock and pebble. We have this habit of taking our health and family for granted and going after what we ‘think’ is more important. So making a wise choice when you face a dilemma is what matters.
How you want to fill the jar is what life is all about. If you want to fill it the way the professor filled it or if you can think of a way to fill that in a more creative way suiting your lifestyle. But whatever be the way, let your rocks remain the same as above.
As I mentioned here, taking care of yourself is the best way to take care of the people you love. And if we have all the success and money but no family to share the happiness, how meaningless it will be, right? When your health and family are behind your back as a solid support, you can go miles and achieve anything you want!
Next time, whenever you face confusion what should be the priority for you, let this story guide you…
See you soon in my next post. Until then take care and stay happy 🙂
