Put That Glass Of Juice Down

Dear lovely people,

I got home one evening to find my three beautiful kids enjoying a glass of juice each. A crazy idea crept into my mind and so I decided to engage them in a little experiment. I got the three of them lined up, filled their glasses to the same level with more juice and asked them to each hold their glasses up with one hand. I asked my last daughter to hold her glass up for two minutes, her elder sister was to hold hers up for ten minutes and their eldest brother was to hold his for twenty-five minutes.

At the end of the experiment, I asked them how they felt and got amazing answers. My last daughter told me she felt nothing, her elder sister said at the end, she realized the glass was a bit heavy and their eldest brother said he began to fill some pain on his hand at the end due to the weight of the glass. Guess what, all the glasses had the same quantity of juice so the question is why did they all feel differently?

Reflecting on this, I realized that the absolute weight of their glasses do not matter.  It all depended on how long each of them held it up.  My last daughter held her glass just for two minutes that is why she noticed nothing.  Her elder sister held hers for ten minutes straight, the weight of the glass made her arm ache a little and that’s why she felt some weight at the end.  Her elder brother, held his for twenty-five minutes straight and so actually felt pain at the end due to the weight of the same glass. It was crystal clear that in each case, the weight of the glass doesn’t change, but the longer it was held up, the heavier it felt to them.

In this game of life, our struggles, stresses and worries are very much like my children’s glasses of juice.  When you think about them for a while, nothing happens.  When you begin to think about them a bit longer, you begin to ache a little and boil inside.  When you surrender you entire day just thinking about them, you feel completely numb and paralyzed and in most cases, incapable of doing anything else until you drop them or find lasting solutions to them.

Winning in this game of life implies that you constantly remember to let go of your struggles, stresses and worries by finding lasting solutions to them and this lies in taking informed and decisive action.  No matter what happens during the day and even when things don’t go according to plan, try as much as you can to put things to rest before sunset. Don’t carry your burdens with you all through the night and into the next day.  If you still feel the weight of yesterday’s stress, it’s a strong sign that it’s time to put the glass of juice down.