The Secret of Life
One sunny day Mullah Nasr Eddin was speaking to a group of villagers, who had asked him to tell them the secret of a good life and how they could lead such a life. He stood in the market place in front of the group and said that to tell them the secret of life he will illustrate it with the use of a jar.
He got hold of a large earthen vessel, which had a wide mouth and set it on the table in front of him. Then he produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar.
When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, "Is this jar full?" The villagers answered in choir, "Yes." Then he said, "Really?" He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped some gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the space between the big rocks.
Then he asked the men once more, "Is the jar full?" By this time they had already learned something and as they also knew Mullah and his tricks they were a little hesitant. "Probably not," answered Mustafa. "Good!" he replied. He reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in the jar and it went into all of the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel.
Once more he asked the question, "Is this jar full?" "No!" shouted the men. Once again he said, "Good." Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim.
After this the good Mullah looked at the villagers gathered around him and asked, "What is the point of this illustration?" Ali raised his hand and said, "The point is, no matter how much you work, if you try really hard you can always do more!"
"No," replied the Mullah, "that's not the point. The truth this illustration teaches us is: If you don't put the big rocks in first, you'll never get them in at all."
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