Monthly Archives: October 2009

Parable of the Mayo Jar and 2 Cups of Coffee

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A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.

When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and  proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full.

They agreed that it was. 

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar as he shook the jar lightly.

The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full.

They agreed it was. 
 
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. 

He asked once more if the jar was full.

The students responded with an unanimous “yes.” 

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand.

The students laughed. 

“Now,” said the professor as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar  represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things—God, your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions—and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. 

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 into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.

 The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you. 

“Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.

Spend time with your children.  Spend time with your parents.  Visit with grandparents. Take time to get medical checkups.  Take your spouse out to dinner.  Play another 18 holes of golf.

There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal.

Take care of the golf balls first—the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.” 

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.. The professor smiled and said, “I’m glad you asked.” 

The coffee just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.”

Yours in friendship,

Yucel

Implications of Life Cycle Dislocation, Obesity?

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How could our dislocations from the cycle of life via ready availability of prepared foods possibly be linked to the obesity epidemic of 2009?

It will be interesting to see what kind of comments are generated by this post.   

 Though the premise itself seems fairly simple.

If we had to grow our own food and if we had to slaughter OUR OWN food, you think we might be more appreciative of the work and life that went into our bounty?

In this appreciation, do you think we might eat less?

Perhaps we might eat less after we were full to bursting, if we had to slit the throat personally of our 3rd double cheeseburger?  

What if our 4th hot dog meant we had to go out and throttle yet another pig?

What about that biggie fries?  What if we had to plant, tend and harvest an extra acre of potatoes, ourselves personally, to have that biggie fry?

What if we had to move our own personal biggie butts to farm an extra acre of land just to have that biggie fry?

What if we had to personally clear cut, with our own hands, an extra acre of rain forest to have that banana with our fruit loops and milk, would we eat so much still?

I’m not suggesting we would give up meat.   I love and am grateful for meat.  Yum!

Our rancher and farmer forefathers and foremothers ate meat for sure.

However, where we might choose to feel put out that the double cheeseburger took 6 minutes in a drive through lane, they might have been grateful to the cow or chicken for its life and sacrifice. 

They might have treated the creature well, who was a kind of neighbor. 

They might have expressed blessings and gratitude on harvest and on enjoyment of the nourishment.

They might have been a bit less extra fat than we when farming and ranching, what with all that extra work.

They might have been truly hungry  when they ate and not felt like they had to farm another acre to work off that little bitty piece of pie they just were so grateful to have.

They might have been more respectful of and grateful for their integrity with the cycle of life. 

Through action of The Law of Attraction which was set in motion when they expressed their respect and gratitude for their meager sustenance, perhaps they were more healthily sustained by it as well.

I’m not suggesting we go completely native.  Nor do I harbor any illusions of a romantic past where reality was life on the land was hard and food was sparse. 

However, if we ever have a chance to connect with life through its cycle, through growing it, nourishing it, maybe harvesting it directly, perhaps it would increase our appreciations for the fact that we consume what was once alive and has given its life so that we may live.

So through added respect and appreciation for THE LIFE of our food, we may better respect and appreciate our own lives even as we integrate through eating its nutrients and goodness.  

These appreciations may serve us well in many ways, including perhaps improved health and trimmer hotter bods. 

Thus regardless of having these opportunities to farm or ranch, we might surely find ourselves more blessed to feel and truly express gratitude for and connection with the life that is our nourishment.

What do you think?

Gratefully yours,

Yucel

( See also:  http://choose.ws/2009/10/27/spirituality/its-a-fish-eat-fish-world-and-im-grateful-for-it/yucel/ ) 

It’s a fish eat fish world; and, I’m grateful for it

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It keeps coming back to me that pretty much everything we eat which has caloric (energy) value has at one time or another been itself alive.

It’s a fish eat fish world; and, I’m grateful for it.

  • Cheeseburgers were once living cows
  • Bread was once wheat, a living  plant
  • Mushrooms are living representatives of the fungi family
  • Milk was once living grass, which the cows ate and transformed for us
  • Synthesized caloric food additives probably are made from a crude oil base,  which oil itself was once some form of life millions of years ago prior to its tranformation
  • Fish, though possessing seemingly expressionless faces, certainly live, can feel and I’ve even heard them scream
  • Bacteria break down, transform and recycle nutrients, are essential for human digestion and we eat some of them with every bite we take
  • And so on…

It’s all part of food cycle integrity.

What about exceptions?

Well, things like salt and water, though essential for life, have zero energy value.

We may consider that plants for instance can fix carbon in the soil and air and use energy from the sun and grow without other life… however, even plants, when they die,  are broken down and become themselves nutrients for the next generation of plants. 

So, plants too eat plants.

In fact, healthy soils contain quite a great deal of decomposed plant matter for the living plants to feast upon. 

Additionally plants metabolize CO2, Carbon Dioxide, which animals breath out when they themselves metabolize what ever life forms they ate….

So through this cycle, plants too “eat” other once living things in order to grow, thrive, live, reproduce and evolve.

Thus for this point in our evolution anyway, the life cycle seems wholly integral with the food cycle.

It’s a life eat life to live kind of world.

So what?

Well, I eat meat.  I love it and am grateful for it.

And I eat veggies too.   Love them.  Am grateful for them as well.

Mushrooms too, yummy.  Thankful indeed.

And so on…

What I strive to do better now is to be consciously and truly appreciative for the bounty of my food and to be grateful for that which grew and surrendered its life so that I might be nourished by and made joyful through its existence and sacrifice.

Yours in life,

Yucel

( See also:  http://choose.ws/2009/10/28/spirituality/implications-of-life-cycle-dislocation-obesity/yucel/ )

Allowing and Accepting What Is

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Allowing and accepting what is can be both the hardest and easiest of endeavors.  When we fight accepting, we are in turmoil.  And when we allow and accept, we get into the ease of abundant flow.
 
One way of accomplishing acceptance is to find ways to be in gratitude for what is.  
 
If you cannot be in full gratitude for all of what is, try sitting back and feeling how you feel andtry to feel gratitude for whatever in your existence you can be truly grateful for.
 
Try then for a few minutes to reflect on what the qualities of the situation or person for which you are feeling gratitude.
 
We all know, “It is what it is.” 
 
Throught The Law of Attraction ( LOA, The Law ), we know that we get more of what is. 
 
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  
Accepting without grudge with gratitude and positively are very effective ways how we may begin and continue to expand our abundance.
Each of us must begin right where we are.  We will always be right where we are. 
It is what it is.  It will always be what it is. 

Accepting and allowing what it is will free you from a struggle against which you cannot escape.The tribe also jealously guards its territory. 

You can however, change your perspective, and in the flow of the river, instead of fighting the flow by swimming upstream and still drifting down, swim across the stream, or perhaps even go with the flow. 

While it is what it is,  your perspective and choices can make worlds of difference. 

When youget into a mindset of gratitude and acceptance of the flow and are allowing, accepting and dreaming happy dreams of abundance and gratitudes, be careful with whom you share your dreams. 

Everyone and everything is a mirror of ourselves. 

Some of these mirrors with whom we share and into whom we stare into ourselves, if we choose to look in them knowing full well these mirrors are dark and murky, will by our choice to share through clouded dark mirrors, reflect darkness back into ourselves.  

It is always of our choosing whether we will cast our pearls before swine.

Choosing mirrors of brightness will reflect brightness into us.  This will allow a deeper acceptance and gratitude for what is and creates a more abundant what will be. 

There is a tribal mentality that gives comfort to us where we are in our groups and surroundings, even as we may be singly or collectively in pain.  Members of our tribe will back us up when new challenges come in to threaten us.   And, likewise may share in rewards.  The tribe thus shares griefs and provides a wide range of supports to its members. 

If you as a member of a tribe see opportunity in the next valley, the tribe that propped you up, may now hold you back. 

The tribe that will not accompany you on your chosen journeys will endeavor to hold you in place and keep you back from leaving and growing or succeeding where they choose not to accompany you.

As we grow our lights too grow brighter.  This brighter glow does get noticed.

Choose well with whom you share your shining light as it grows brighter. 

Yours in brightness,

Yucel

Special Occasion Patience Parable

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“A friend of mine opened his wife’s underwear drawer and picked up a silk paper wrapped package:

‘This, – he said – isn’t any ordinary package.’

He unwrapped the box and stared at both the silk paper and the box.

‘She got this the first time we went to New York , 8 or 9 years ago. She has never put it on , was saving it for a special occasion.

Well, I guess this is it.

He got near the bed and placed the gift box next to the other clothing he was taking to the funeral house, his wife had just died.

He turned to me and said:

‘Never save something for a special occasion.

Every day in your life is a special occasion’.

I still think those words changed my life.

Now I read more and clean less.

I sit on the porch without worrying about anything.

I spend more time with my family, and less at work.

I understood that life should be a source of experience to be lived up to, not survived through.

I no longer keep anything.

I use crystal glasses every day…

I’ll wear new clothes to go to the supermarket, if I feel like it.

I don’t save my special perfume for special occasions, I use it whenever I want to.

The words ‘Someday…’ and ‘ One Day…’ are fading away from my dictionary..

If it’s worth seeing, listening or doing, I want to see, listen or do it now…

I don’t know what my friend’s wife would have done if she knew she wouldn’t be there the next morning, this nobody can tell.

I think she might have called her relatives and closest friends.
She might call old friends to make peace over past quarrels.

I’d like to think she would go out for Chinese, her favorite food.

It’s these small things that I would regret not doing, if I knew my time had come.

Each day, each hour, each minute, is special.

Live for today, for tomorrow is promised to no-one.”

Yours in life,

Yucel