A Cup of Coffee
A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got
together to visit their old University of Notre Dame lecturer.
Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the lecturer went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, some plain looking
and some expensive and exquisite, telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.


When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the lecturer said:
"If you noticed, all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving
behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the
best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What
all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the
better cups and are eyeing each other's cups."

"Now, if Life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in
society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, but the
quality of Life doesn't change."

"Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee
in it."