The Story of Thousand Marbles (Few Life Inspiring Words - 9)

Starting fresh on the first day of this New Year 2011, I would like to greet and wish all my readers A Very Happy New Year with this immensely valuable story about an aging man, which teaches us all probably the most valuable lesson of our remaining lives.

Before starting, I would like to share that the story may be both enlightening as well as frightening for a few readers as it very boldly makes us realize the value of our gifted lives in a novel way. Yet it’s indeed a must read which might change the way we all are going to live our New Year from now on. So, here it goes with the title :

The Story of Thousand Marbles.

Tom was a wise man, working almost 60 hours a week to maintain the decent lifestyle of himself and his loving family. One day while cleaning his room’s old stuff he just got an idea out of the blue to do some arithmetic about LIFE. So he started thinking and wrote down the following rough calculation on a paper.

"The average person lives about seventy-five years in his life…………Yes, some do live more and some less, but let’s say that on an average, a person lives about seventy-five years.

Now if we multiply 75 with 52 weeks which we experience every year, then it comes to 3,900 in total. In other words there are 3,900 numbers of Saturdays that the average person sees in his entire lifetime.”

After reaching this calculation, Tom went on with it further and reached the more enlightening part of his exercise. Having the figure of 3900 Saturdays with him, Tom added on his paper,

“If I look back in time then I am now Fifty Five years old, according to which I have already lived 2860 Saturdays (55 X 52) without ever realizing it. Now, if I deduct these 2860 already passed Saturdays from the total of 3900, then it only comes to the number of around 1000.”

The last thought made Tom sit straight as he reached the conclusion that he has left only about 1000 Saturdays to live more.

Taking a note of it Tom at once went to a Toy Store, and bought every single marble they had. He had to visit three different toy stores to collect 1,000 marbles he needed. After having them all he went home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container and placed it in his study.

Every Saturday since then, he started taking one marble out of the container and threw it away. And with the passing time, as he watched the marbles diminishing in the container, Tom started focusing more on the really important things in his life and less on the others.

The exercise made Tom realize that there is nothing like watching your own allotted time here on this earth run out, reminding you to get your priorities straight.

The years passed on and then came the morning when Tom took the very last marble out of the container. Taking it out, he thought that, “If I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time from the ALMIGHTY on this earth.” Thinking that he right-away went upstairs and woke up his wife with a gentle kiss, "C'mon honey, I'm taking you out for a nice breakfast."

"What brought this on?" asked his wife with a surprising smile.

"Oh, nothing special, it's just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together. And hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out?

“What for at a TOY STORE so early” questioned the lady.

Listening that, TOM had a big sweet smile on his face and replied,

“I need to buy some marbles."

……………………………

When I first read this story, I couldn’t think anything for the next 5 minutes and went entirely blank with a complete silence inside myself. Remembering that precious silence I would not like to make any concluding comment on this story here and would like all my friends and well wishers to think and meditate upon this amazing story in their own inner way.

May we all spend our remaining time on this planet with more joy, love and affection. 

HIS BLESSINGS

(Courtesy : From a subscription mail sent by Simpletruths.com about the book titled “Charging The Human Battery”)