How Heavy is A Glass of Water?

A teacher stood in front of his class with a full glass of water and held it up high. "How heavy is this glass of water?" he asked. Classmembers called out a bunch of answers that ranged from 20g to 500g.

The teacher responded to the class saying "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it. You see, if I hold this glass up for just a minute, it doesn't feel heavy and it's not a problem. If I hold it up for an hour, it feels a heavier, and I'll have an ache in my arm. If I hold it  up for a full day, it feels like lead and my arm will have spasms!"

"In each case, the glass of water actually weighs the same, even though the longer I hold it, the heavier it feels."

The lesson is that stress in our lives is like the weight of the glass of water; it's relative to how long we hold onto it. 

When stress occurs, if we deal with it quickly, it's not a problem.  But the longer we hold onto our stresses, the heavier they become. Some situations and stresses are beyond our control and we cannot make them disappear.  But just as with a glass of water, we can choose to put the stress down for a while (sleep, exercise, meditation, talking to others, or through whatever means works for you)  and rest before holding the stress again.

When we are rested, it's always easier to manage stress.

Clyde the Donkey

One day a farmer went out to look for his donkey clyde.  He couldn't find him, but as he walked his land, he heard the donkey braying and realized the donkey had fallen into an old abandoned well. T

The farmer was so distraught - he had not way to get his beloved donkey Clyde out of the well. He decided the only humane thing to do was to bury poor Clyde so he wouldn't suffer for long.

He went and got a shovel and slowly started to shovel dirt into the well.  He kept at it for what seemed like hours.  Suddenly, he could hear Clyde's braying getting louder. He thought he must be imagining it because he knew that soon his poor donkey would be gone.  But  as he shoveled, the braying continued to get louder.

Finally the farmer peeked down into the well, and was astounded by what he saw. Clyde was halfway up the well!  He wasn't sure what was happening, so this time, he watched as he threw a shovelful of dirt into the well.  As it landed on Clydes back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and stomp it down a step up on the new layer of dirt to build himself a path out of the well.

The lesson in this for all us is that there will always be times when it feels like life is shovelling dirt on you - sometimes all kinds of dirt.  They is to shake it off, stomp it down, and use it as a layer on your path out of the well you are in.