A group of highly educated students visited their old university professor . Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life . Offering them coffee , Professor returned from the kitchen with a pot of coffee and an assortment of cups – porcelain , glass , crystal , some plain looking , some expensive , some exquisite – telling them to help themselves to hot coffee .
When all had a cup of coffee in hand , the professor said : “If you noticed , all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain ones . While it’s but normal for you to want only the best , that’s also the source of your stress . What you really wanted was coffee , not the cup , but you still went for the best cups and we’re eyeing each other’s cup!”
If life is coffee , then jobs , money and status in society are the cups . They are just tools to hold and contain life . Don’t let the cups drive you . Enjoy the coffee .
Being a Serious UPSC Aspirant, our ultimate aim is to get good rank, enter into the Civil Service and decorate the Prestigious positions. For that we are doing a hell lot of work. We are giving everything we have in us. We are sacrificing many things such as professional growth, Onsite Trips, marriage delay, and many more. All is ok. But that should not stop us from living life to the fullest. Here, Living to the full means we have to become THE best Aspirant. Our preparation should be Disciplined, Structured and Calibrated. Then our journey will be smoother and peaceful. Then we can focus on the present moment, we can sip the coffee. Because in Zen, they say “Life is No-Where, Life is Now-Here”.
