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Life Is Like a Cup of Coffee Reaction Paper
To summarize the story, there was a gathering when the group of successful alumni students visited their university professor. This professor then, offers coffee, but with different cups to fill it with. Most of the porcelain and expensive-looking cups were used. He compared this to our perspective in life, success and happiness. The coffee is life, and the cups are just the superficial and temporary fixes, all of which does not truly define us or the quality of life we have.
The line that truly made sense to me was, “Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cups, we fail to enjoy the coffee.” For one, I find it funny that we all work hard to have good lives and risk our health for our jobs. Whereas, when we get sick because of exhausting ourselves doing this, we spend all our savings to try to keep ourselves alive – great irony and a hard truth. We push ourselves to the limit everyday, working hard to prove something to others or to ourselves. In doing so, we often forget to live in the moment and enjoy the ride. We get so caught up with planning for tomorrow and fail to understand that the present is as much as important as our future. The norm is to measure one’s success by his job description, land hectares, designer bags, even Facebook likes. It is very human, but it is temporary. There is always so much more than what we see. Always.
“The happiest people don’t have everything. They just make the best of everything.” I think one of the best examples for this is our race. We Filipinos live in a third-world country where majority is poor and middle-class. Still you see families living simple lives in provinces, content and happy. That’s because they do not feed on fame and money for their self-worth. They are grateful for what they have and make the best out of it.
I am also guilty of being attracted to material things and thirst for status to fit in or to be looked up to by society, peers or family. But this story
To summarize the story, there was a gathering when the group of successful alumni students visited their university professor. This professor then, offers coffee, but with different cups to fill it with. Most of the porcelain and expensive-looking cups were used. He compared this to our perspective in life, success and happiness. The coffee is life, and the cups are just the superficial and temporary fixes, all of which does not truly define us or the quality of life we have.
The line that truly made sense to me was, “Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cups, we fail to enjoy the coffee.” For one, I find it funny that we all work hard to have good lives and risk our health for our jobs. Whereas, when we get sick because of exhausting ourselves doing this, we spend all our savings to try to keep ourselves alive – great irony and a hard truth. We push ourselves to the limit everyday, working hard to prove something to others or to ourselves. In doing so, we often forget to live in the moment and enjoy the ride. We get so caught up with planning for tomorrow and fail to understand that the present is as much as important as our future. The norm is to measure one’s success by his job description, land hectares, designer bags, even Facebook likes. It is very human, but it is temporary. There is always so much more than what we see. Always.
“The happiest people don’t have everything. They just make the best of everything.” I think one of the best examples for this is our race. We Filipinos live in a third-world country where majority is poor and middle-class. Still you see families living simple lives in provinces, content and happy. That’s because they do not feed on fame and money for their self-worth. They are grateful for what they have and make the best out of it.
I am also guilty of being attracted to material things and thirst for status to fit in or to be looked up to by society, peers or family. But this story