I was sent this in an e-mail last year. Thought you might enjoy it too.
A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned to complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups, of porcelain, plastic, glass, and crystal - some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the coffee. When each of the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: "If you noticed, all the nice-looking, expensive cups were taken up first, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves that is the source of your problems and stress.
Be assured that the cup, itself, adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases, the "nicer" cup is just more expensive; and the more impressive cup may come to appear more important than what it contains. What all of you really wanted was the coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups… and then began eyeing each other's cup.
Now consider this: Life is the coffee, and jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, and the type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of the Life we live. If we concentrate on the cup, we may fail to enjoy the coffee."
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