I’m pretty sure you’ve seen that “jar of life” video by now made by that philosophy professor who equates life to filling up a mason jar. If you haven’t seen it, there ‘s a version of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqGRnlXplx0 (sorry for the ads).
He starts off by filling the jar with golf balls. He asks his students, is the jar full? Since this is clearly a staged video, his students all look really attentive and answer, “yes!” But not so fast; the professor takes out a some pebbles and he fills the gaps between the golf balls. “How about now?” he asks. The students again nod “yes” – the jar is obviously full. Oh, but it doesn’t end there. The professor then whips out a jar of sand and pours it into the remaining space. “Full now?” At this point, there’s just that one guy in the back who’s definitely getting a C in philosophy who looks a bit confused, but everyone else agrees that, yes, the jar is clearly full. But no! The professor opens a beer and pours it into the jar filling it to the very brim.
What is this supposed to demonstrate? First, you fill your life up with the big things (the golf balls) – family, friends, love. Then you deal with the important stuff like job, school, etc. The sand is the little stuff – the guy in front of you who orders the double foam, half-caf, half-decaf, mochachino with pumpkin seed milk. The beer? Well, when all is said and done, you should always save some room to have a beer with friends. Cue the laughter and the brown-noses who applaud.
As I was putting the final touches on packing for my trip (I swear this will be my last pre-travel post) – having packed, unpacked, repacked, unpacked and packed again – I decided this whole metaphor was pretty ridiculous (and philosophically unsound). The more I thought about it, the dumber I thought it was.
The professor was so intent on cramming things into his jar, all sense of being able to access what was actually in the jar went out the window. Sure, the big picture issues – the golf balls – were the first thing into the jar. But once you piled pebbles, sand and some beer on top of them, how in God’s name were you supposed to access them? What good is filling your life to the absolute brim if you have to dump everything out just to get to the good stuff? Shouldn’t the focus be on getting as much of the big stuff into your life while at the same time leaving room to reach to the golf balls at the bottom of the jar?
I was forced down this path as I was putting the finishing touches on my packing. First of all, praise the lord for compression bags (I recommend Tilliv for your next attempt to way overload a suitcase). I had piles and piles of stuff to cram into my already overly large suitcases. Everything seemed critical. How could I possibly make do with fewer t-shirts or just a single fleece? If I could just unpack and repack one more time…
But then I started removing items one by one until I got to the point where I felt like I had what I needed, it was all (relatively) accessible, and, as an adult with a credit card, I could fill in any gaps as I went along. I got down to the golf balls, some pebbles, and maybe a little sand. You can’t pack beer in a suitcase, so leaving that out was easy. I didn’t need to pack everything to the brim – in fact, my life was made more difficult when I tried to do so.
The same applies to this journey I’m on. I don’t need to go everywhere. The world is a big place and I still have room in my mason jar. I’m going to choose to fill it with as many golf balls as I can (and maybe some beer). Once I got rid of those pebbles and sand, I didn’t even have to sit on my suitcases to get them zipped close. And no, I’m not taking up golf any time soon.
Leave a comment