A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. The conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

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

After all the students had a cup of hot drink in hand, the professor said: “If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.”

“Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the chocolate. In most cases, it’s just more expensive and in somecases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was hot chocolate, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups…and then began eyeing each other’s cups.”

“Now consider this: Life is the hot cocoa, and the jobs, houses, cars, things, money and position in society are the cups. They are temporary tools we use to live by. The type of cup we have does not define nor change the quality of life we live.

“Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the cocoa God has provided us.

“God brews the cocoa, not the cups. Enjoy your hot chocolate!”