Cup of Life....

I kept the phone receiver. It was ten minutes past one. He had rung me up at midnight. Seventy minutes. He is an okey kinda friend of mine. But first time this long chat over phone. Long lamentations. Hectic job, uninteresting activities in the office, lack of social interactions, loneliness, fear of responsibilities, deadline pressures, collegue cold wars, low concentration, low moitvation, aimless office life, affected personal life, many topics he went on. I listened to all those.

After i kept the phone God knows till what time i kept on thinking. He was not the first person to tell me like this. Many more people have the same cord. People wo are elder to me, my classmate, youger ones... All are bugged up with the stressfull life. After passing out in 2004 hardly its been one year since they are into their professional life. And here they are not content with what they got and not satisfied the way life is leading them to.

One complaints me about the never ending work hours, the other comments on their unsupportive superiors. One remarks angrily the way they are trweated and yet another about the tensions due to deadlines. Some laments about the field they chose and others the nature of their work. I kept on pondering for any solution for all these dismays. I am happy the way I am. Why? I was not before. Why now? I digged the conscience and all facts and came to the conclusion,'Am doing what I think what is right and what interests me'. And I think its a defacto thing I believe, now I am content with the way am leading my life rather the life leading me.

I thought of a story read somewhere, which might help my friends who are under stress to re-organise their bedlam life style and outlook towards life.

A group of working adults got together to visit their University lecturer. The lecturer was happy to see them. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. The Lecturer just smiled and went to the kitchen to get an assortment of cups - some porcelain, some in plastic, some in glass, some plain looking and some looked rather expensive and exquisite.

The Lecturer offered his former students the cups to get drinks for themselves. When all the students had a cup in hand with water, the Lecturer spoke: "If you noticed, all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal that you only want the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all you wanted was water, not the cup, but we unconsciously went for the better cups."

"Just like in life, if Life is Water, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold/maintain Life, butthe quality of Life doesn't change." "If we only concentrate on the cup, we won't have time to enjoy/taste the water in it.