LIFE IS NOT A TAPESTRY OF EVENTS
The people who have the hardest time being creative thinkers are the same people who look at life as a unchanging and unchangeable tapestry of events. They are like a sheep browsing in a field. All the sheep can see are the two square feet of grass directly beneath its nose. The sheep can only change its perspective by moving and when it does move, the next two square feet look just like the last two square feet.
By extension, to the sheep the world is just a giant field of grass.
Transferring this example to humans, many people see their job as an extension of reality. Because most jobs are tedious , change comes very slowly if it comes at all and life appears to the same day-in/day-out. These people chart the passage of time by the growth of their children, who won Super Bowl XX or movie sequels.
For these people, the following parable has special meaning.
One day a professor of philosophy filled a large, empty mayonnaise jar with golf balls. When he couldn't fit another one in, he asked his class if the jar was full.
They agreed it was.
So the professor pulled out a bag of marbles and poured them into the jar and shook it so the marbles fill the spaces between the golf balls. When the jar was full, he asked the class again if the jar was full.
Again they agreed it was.
Then the professor took out a bottle of sand and poured it into the jar. By shaking the jar he was able to have the sand fill all the spaces between the marbles and the golf balls. When the jar was full, he asked the class yet again if the jar was full.
They agreed it was.
Finally the professor took two beers, popped them open and poured them into the now-full mayonnaise jar.
"Now," the professor told his students, "this jar is your life. The golf balls are the important things: your family, your god, your health, your friends. The marbles are the things you have to do: your job, your house payments, taking the kids to the doctor. The sand is all the little things in life, the small stuff. As you go through life, remember to fill it with the important things first and the small stuff last. Take care of your family and yourself first, your job second and the small stuff last. Don't fix a window instead of playing with your children."
That made a lot of sense to the students. Then one asked, "What about the two beers?"
The professor smiled, "no matter how full your life may seem to be, there's always room for a couple of beers."