Striving towards Excellence

-Karthik Gurumurthy

Having the right priorities can make or break one's life. It is a good habit to have the priorities straight and that can make a world of difference. Sometimes we all get caught up with the fancy stuff and the bling, bling, we do not take a moment to pause what is important.

It reminds me of the story which my friend narrated few years ago.

The story goes that a group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress at work and in life. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went into the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups: Porcelain, plastic, paper, some plain looking and some quite exquisite. He then asked them to help themselves to hot coffee. When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: 'If you notice, all the nice-looking, expensive cups are taken, 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 your 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 the tools to hold and contain Life, they don't change the quality of Life. At times, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it.'

It is something that all of us should remind ourselves consciously to slow down and smell the coffee.