October 18, 2012 - Put Down the Glass

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster

This morning I received an email from an old friend. These are generally accompanied by the urgent recommendation they be passed on to X number of our friends. This one was a different, containing advice which speaks to each of our lives today.

“A young lady confidently walked around the room while leading and explaining stress management to an audience; with a raised glass of water, and everyone knew she was going to ask the ultimate question, 'half empty or half full?'..... she fooled them all... "How heavy is this glass of water?", she inquired with a smile.
 

Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz.
 

She replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, no problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day – call an ambulance. The weight is the same, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."”
 

The story continued with, “The burden all of us carry today is stress accompanying burdens too great for us to carry for very long.”

So true. The story ended with the suggestion we put down our burdens each evening, resting ourselves so they can be taken up and, we hope, transformed from burdens to tasks accomplished or problems resolved.

I know my friend, Marion, carries many burdens. We ease each other's burdens through shared emails when we have no time to visit.

The list at the end of story made you laugh, cry, and think. Included were these:

Accept the fact that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue!

If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it...

Never buy a car you can't push.

You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.

We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.

Save the earth..... It's the only planet with chocolate!

I was still laughing as I poured my first cup of coffee.