The Glass of Water

Once upon a time there was a psychology teacher, and every week he used to give talks to his students on various aspects of modern psychology. This particular week he walked slowly around the stage as the auditorium filled with students.

Finally the chattering stopped, the bags and rucksacks stopped rustling, the coughing died down and silence gripped the hall. The teacher then looked up and smiled, then walking over to the lectern raised the glass of water that was sitting at the side as if he was going to make a toast. Instead he kept it raised above his head and said, "Can you all see this glass of water?" At this point of course all the students expected they’d be asked the typical “Is the glass half empty or half full?” question. They wasn't. Instead, with a smile on his face, the teacher asked, “How heavy is this glass of water I’m holding?”

Various answers were taken from the assembled student who all raised their hands to have a guess at how heavy it was ranging from eight ounces to a two pounds!

Then after gathering quite a few answers the teacher replied, “From my perspective, the weight of this glass doesn’t really matter. It all actually depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute or two, it’s fairly light. If I held it for an hour, the weight might make my arm ache a little. If I then held it for an entire day, my arm would likely cramp up and feel completely numb and paralyzed, forcing me to drop the glass to the floor. Although in each case, the weight of the glass hasn’t actually changed, it's just the longer I hold it, the heavier it feels to me.”

The class murmured and nodded their heads in agreement, he then continued, “Your stresses and worries in life are very much like this glass of water. If you think about them for a little while nothing happens. Think about them a bit longer and you begin to ache a little. Think about and dwell on them for a whole day, and you will feel completely numb and paralyzed by them – incapable of doing anything else until you drop them."

"So what I'm saying to you all this morning is . . . try not to worry about what's going to happen in the future or how your entire life will pan out. Don’t even worry about tomorrow and the stresses that it might hold. Just live through today first. Let go of the need to try and manage the whole of your future. If you manage to do this, even in a small way, you can free yourself to live your life and actually enjoy the journey along the way.”

Do look after yourselves, and each other.