A Parable

Your philosophy professor sometimes uses visual aids to explain a concept.

Today, he stands before the class, an empty gallon jar on the podium beside him. It reminds you of a store your grandmother used to take you to sometimes, where they sold pickles in bulk. Your mouth waters at the memory of biting into that sour, juicy cucumber.

As you wonder what’s up with the pickle jar, he opens a box of golf balls and places them, one by one, into the jar until it can hold no more. He looks up at the class. “Is the jar full?”

Of course it is; anyone with eyes can see that. “Yes,” you all say, though personally, you’d like a pickle.

He nods, then sets the box down and grabs another from behind his desk. This one is filled with pea gravel, which he pours over the golf balls. He stops two or three times to shake the jar to allow the pebbles to filter down, but he keeps pouring until all the spaces are filled with gravel.

He looks up again. “Is the jar full now?”

You and your classmates glance at one another sheepishly; you’d all thought the jar was full before! He’s right, though; it wasn’t then, but now it is. “Yes,” you all say.

He nods and picks up yet another box. When he tips it over the jar, you see he’s now adding sand. Which, of course, fills in all the tiny spaces between the gravel. Clever.

You all anticipate his question this time. Almost before he asks, “Is the jar full now?” you answer, “Yes.” Because now, of course, it surely is.

But your professor’s not finished yet. He takes the Styrofoam cup from which he’d been periodically sipping and pours the coffee into the jar on top of everything else. When it’s all trickled to the bottom, he pulls another cup from behind the podium and empties it in, too.

You all laugh. It was a neat trick.

The professor scans the room, meeting each student’s eye. “Anyone care to tell me what lesson this illustrates?”

The student in front of you, who happens to be on the golf team, raises her hand. “Even when you hit a lot of balls into the bunker, there’s still room for coffee?”

You all laugh again, including the professor. But he shakes his head. “Though that’s true, it’s not my point.” He lays his hand on the jar. “This is your life. The golf balls are the things that you hold most dear, whatever that may be. Golf, for some—“ he gestures toward the student in front of you. “And for others, God, family, friends, whatever your passion. The things that you value so much that if everything else were lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.”

You nod. That makes sense.

“The pebbles represent other things that matter, like your job, house, and car. Without them, your life would have big gaps. The sand is everything else. The small stuff. Things that might be good or fun, but if they didn’t exist, you’d be none the emptier.”

He picks up the box that had contained the sand. It was still more than half full. “If I’d put the sand into the jar first, I’d have had no space for anything else. No gravel. No golf balls. Same thing is true of your life. Spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, and you’ll have no room for the important things.”

It sinks into your mind like sand filtering down through the pebbles.

“Now,” says the professor, “who would like to articulate today’s lesson?”

The golfer raises her hand. “Where life’s priorities are concerned, golf comes first.”

You all laugh again, but the professor sobers quickly. “If that’s your passion, you can make that choice. But for the rest of us, it would look a little different. The lesson is this: we must first fill our lives with the things that are most critical. Our family, our health, our faith. There will be time for the other necessary things, like doing the laundry or changing the oil. But give priority to your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

You rub your jaw. Yes, it all makes sense. But you have a question, so you raise your hand.

“I get that,” you say. “But what’s with the coffee?”

The professor smiles. “Glad you asked.” He picks up one of the empty cups. “No matter how full your life is, there’s always room for coffee with a friend.”