© 2021 Jean Royer
© 2021 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
JOHN ROYER
01-31-2000
One day, an old professor from the National School of Public Administration (ENAP) was hired to provide training on effective time planning to a group of around fifteen managers of large North American companies.
This course was one of five workshops in their training day.
The old teacher therefore only had one hour to “pass his material”.
Standing in front of this elite group (who were ready to write down everything the expert was going to teach), the old professor looked at them one by one, slowly, then said to them: “We are going to carry out an experiment”.
From under the table that separated him from his students, the old teacher took out a huge one-gallon Mason jar (a glass jar of more than 4 liters) which he delicately placed in front of him.
Next, he took out about a dozen pebbles about the size of tennis balls and carefully placed them, one by one, into the large pot.
When the pot was filled to the brim and it was impossible to add another pebble, he slowly looked up at his students and asked them:
“Is the pot full?”
They all answered: “Yes.”
He waited a few seconds and added: “really?”
So he leaned down again and pulled out a container filled with gravel from under the table. Carefully, he poured the gravel onto the large pebbles and then stirred the pot lightly. The pieces of gravel seeped between the pebbles…all the way to the bottom of the pot.
The old professor looked up at his audience again and asked again, “Is this pot full?” This time, his brilliant students were beginning to understand his trick.
One of them replied: “Probably not!”
“Good!” replied the old professor.
He leaned down again and this time pulled out a bucket of sand from under the table. Carefully, he poured the sand into the pot. The sand filled the spaces between the large pebbles and the gravel.
Again he asked, “Is this pot full?”
This time, without hesitation and in chorus, the brilliant students answered: “no”.
“Good!” replied the old professor.
And as his prestigious students expected, he took the pitcher of water that was on the table and filled the pot to the brim.
The old professor then looked up at his group and asked, “What great truth does this experiment demonstrate to us?”
Not crazy, the most daring of the students, thinking about the subject of this course, replied: “This shows that even when we believe that our agenda is completely full, if we really want to, we can add more appointments, more things to do”.
“No,” replied the old professor. “That’s not it. The great truth that this experiment shows us is the following: if we don’t put the big stones in the pot first, we will never be able to get them all in afterwards.” There was a deep silence, everyone becoming aware of the obviousness of these words.
The old professor then said to them: “What are the big rocks in your life?”
“Your health”
“Your family”
“your friends”
“Make your dreams come true?”
“Doing what you love?”
“ Learn? ”
“Defend a cause?”
“Relax?”
“Take the time…?”
“Or something else?”
“What you need to remember is the importance of putting your BIG ROCKS first in your life, otherwise you risk not succeeding… in your life.
If we give priority to peccadilloes (gravel, sand), we will fill our lives with peccadilloes and we will not have enough precious time to devote to the important elements of our lives.