Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes
I used to volunteer at the Juvenile Detention Center in Tucson teaching a class on healthy choices. Once a month I would have about 20 adolescent offenders who believe it or not were generally attentive while they considered their own priorities and how things might be different on the “outs”.
Here’s a story I shared with them at the end of the class to sum up the learning.
A professor stood before his class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he picked up a wide-mouth gallon jar and proceeded to fill it with some fist-sized rocks. He set one rock in the jar… then another… then another.
He asked the students, “Is the jar full?” The students looked at the rocks in the jar and said, “Yes.”
Then he said, “Ahhh” and pulled out a bucket of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open spaces left by the big rocks.
He asked the students again, “Is the jar full?” The students said, “Yes.”
“Well, let’s see!” he replied. He picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. It went in all the little spaces left by the big rocks and the pebbles.
“Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, “If this jar represents your life, what’s the point of this exercise?”
The students just looked at him (much like my students at the Juvenile Detention Center did).
“Well,” he said, “if I hadn’t put the big rocks in first, would I have had the room for them after I put in the pebbles and the sand?”
“I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The big rocks are the important things in your life – your family, your friends, your health – Things that 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, 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 rocks. The same goes for your life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are most important to you.”
“Take care of the big rocks first, the things that really matter. The rest is just sand.”
I always knew I had them at the end of the class as they sat there in silence thinking about the point of this story. It really puts into perspective the choices one makes as you set your priorities in life.
Here’s a great example of this story in action: I remember reading in one of Stephen Covey’s book (though I can’t find the reference now) that he put all of his daughter’s soccer games into his schedule before any speaking engagements. Even though he is a very busy man, he was at more of his daughter’s soccer games than any of the other fathers.
What are the big rocks that you’d like to make room for? Feel free to share by leaving a comment.
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