The Wisdom of Hot Chocolate

The Wisdom in hot chocolate comes from the small and joyful things in life. Care about the content, not the carrier. Only the content adds to your life.

A group of graduates, well established in their careers, 
were talking at a reunion and decided to go visit their 
old university professor, now retired.
During their visit, the conversation turned to complaints about stress in their work and lives.

Offering his guests hot chocolate, the professor went into the kitchen and returned with a large pot of hot chocolate and an assortment of cups – porcelain, earthenware, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite – telling them to help themselves to the hot chocolate.

When they all had a cup of hot chocolate in hand, the professor said:
“Please notice that all the nice looking, expensive cups are taken, while you left behind the plain and cheap ones.
While it is quite normal for all of you to want only the best for yourselves, please note that it is also the source of your problems and stress.

The cup that you’re drinking from adds nothing to the quality of the hot chocolate. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was hot chocolate, not the cup; yet you consciously went for the best looking cups; not necessarily the best to drink hot chocolate from as some will burn your hands holding them and others are plain cumbersome to handle.
On top of that you began eying and comparing each others cups.

Now consider this:

Life is the hot chocolate; your job, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life. The cup you have does not define, enhance nor change the quality of life you have.
Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the hot chocolate Nature has provided us. Nature makes the hotchocolate, man chooses the cups.
The happiest people don’t have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything that they have.

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. And enjoy your hot chocolate. Especially in the next couple days with the temperatures turning south.