Most Important Things

One day a professor brought A jug, Two Balls of Golf, some Pebbles, sand enough to fill the jug full and two mugs full of Coffee to his class. He filled the jug with sand and asked his students to put in the golf balls without spilling the sand. They were not able to do this. Then he asked them to put in the pebbles in the jug without spilling the sand. The students could not yet do it. Then he asked them to put the coffee in the jug. They tried and succeeded the coffee got added to the jug making its way in between the sand. Now the Professor emptied the jug and put the golf balls in it. Then he added pebbles and shook the jug a bit so that the pebbles settle down in the spaces. Then he added some fresh sand and kept shaking the jug whole of the sand got added. Now he brought two mugs full of coffee and added the coffee to the jug. The class was confused to see all this… now the professor told the class:

The Jug depicts Life.
The Golf balls are the Most Important Things in our life.(Family, Values, Morals etc.)
The Pebbles are some little Important things like our job, bosses etc.
The Sand depicts the Unimportant things like dressing, cleanliness in house … etc.
Now he explained… If we keep filling (give importance to) our life with the non important things, we will face stress as the important and most important things will not fit in. And if we fill our life (give importance to) with important and most important things the non important things will also follow-in (if we wished so).

One student raised his hand asked – “What about coffee sir?”

“That was what I left for the end” said professor. “Whether we fill our life with Most Important things or with non important things, there is always a space for a coffee with a friend.”