A Philosophy of Life

One Sunday when I was in high school, a Sunday School teacher gave an object lesson involving a jar full of rocks. I found a handout from that lesson the other day when going through some old school things, and I was struck by how the simplest concepts can sometimes slip past us until someone points them out.


A professor stood in front of his class with a jar full of rocks. He held up the jar and asked the students if they thought it was full; they said yes. He took a box of small pebbles and poured them into the jar, and they slid in around the rocks. The class laughed.


Then the professor picked up a box of sand, and as he poured it into the jar, the sand filled in all the empty spaces. 


"This jar is like your life," he said. "The rocks are the important things--your family, your partner, your health, your children--anything so important to you that if it were lost, you would be nearly destroyed.

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"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 in the jar first, there's no room for anything else; but if you start with the rocks, everything fits.


"Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take your wife out dancing. Call your parents just to say hello. There will always be time to go to work, clean the house, give a dinner party, and fix the disposal.


"Take care of the rocks first--the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."