How Is Your Hot Chocolate?

I just received this e-mail from a friend. I decided to post it because I get so caught up in the "outward". As I look at things I want to get accomplished once the kids get back in school, each item revolves around redoing, recleaning, redecorating, or rewhatever! I need to spend more time working on the inner me -- making my hot chocolate full and meaningful...


A group of university graduates, well established in their careers, were talking at a reunion and decided to go visit one of their honored professors, now retired. During their visit, the conversation turned to complaints about stress in their work and lives.

Offering his guests hot chocolate, the professor went into the kitchen and returned with a large pot of hot chocolate and an assortment of porcelain, glass, and crystal cups with some being rather plain looking while others were expensive and exquisite looking. He then asked them to help themselves to the hot chocolate. When they all had a cup of hot chocolate in hand, the professor said:

"Notice that all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress."

"The cup that you're drinking from adds nothing to the quality of the hot chocolate. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was hot chocolate, not the cup; but you consciously went for the best cups. And then you began eyeing each other's cups. Now consider this:"

"Life is the hot chocolate; your job, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life. The cup you have does not define, nor change the quality of life you have."

"Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the hot chocolate God has provided us. God makes the hot chocolate, man chooses the cups."

"The happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything that they have."

"Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. And enjoy the hot chocolate in your life."