Last Saturday morning as I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice.
"Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. It's too bad you missed your daughter's dance recital he continued. "Let me tell you something that has helped me keep my own priorities." And he began to explain his theory of a ‘thousand marbles’.
"You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about 75 years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about 75 years. Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in his lifetime.
It took me until I was 55 years old to think about all this in any detail", he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over 2,800 Saturdays." "I got to thinking that if I lived to be 75, I only had about a 1,000 of them left to enjoy. So I went to a toy store and bought 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container."
"Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight."
"Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure that if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time."
"It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band."
You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. "C'mon honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast."
"What brought this on?" she asked with a smile.
"It's just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. And hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles."
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