Food For Thought

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Are you losing your marbles?

This conversation was recently overheard between two men, one of the men was a young fellow with a family, the other an older, much wiser man.  The young man was telling the old man how he had to work 60-70 hour weeks and weekends just to make ends meet. The older, wiser man responded with this............Well, it sure sounds like your busy with your job and I'm sure they pay you well, but its a shame you have to be away from your home and family so much. Its really too bad you had to miss your daughters dance recital, your sons first baseball game and your wifes birthday.....then the older man continued, let me tell you something that has helped me keep my own priorities in line.  The old man told the young man that he got to thinking about life one day so he sat down and done some simple arithmetic.  The average person lives about 75 years, he took 75 years and multiplied that times 52 weeks and he came up with the number 3900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their lifetime.  The old man went on to say that it took him until he was 56 years old to realize this and by that time he had already used up 2900 of his 3900 Saturdays, so if he lived to be 75 he only had 1000 left. So the old man went to a local toy store and bought 1000 marbles. He took these 1000 marbles and placed them in a large glass jar and placed them by his bed.  Every Saturday morning since then, he has taken one marble out and thrown it away.  The old man continued and told him one last thing before he left.......he told him that this morning he took the very last marble out of his jar and threw it away, so he figured if he made it another Saturday that would be a gift from the good Lord and he didn't want to waste that gift. . After hearing this the young man went straight to the toy store and bought his share of marbles, the next Saturday instead of worrying about getting up and going to work, he woke his wife up with a kiss on the cheek and the kids in tow, and headed out for a family breakfast. These wise men found that by watching the marbles diminish, they focused on the things that are really important in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities striaght.

Where are your priorities?  Do you know how many marbles you have left?