I once read a lovely story about a monk and a glass.Someone asked him how he managed to stay so calm and peaceful in life, especially when things inevitably changed or came to an end. The monk picked up a glass of water and said, “To me, this glass is already broken.”
At first, that sounds quite sad. But it wasn’t. What he meant was that one day, the glass would inevitably break. It might fall from the table. It might crack with age. It might simply wear out over time. The monk understood that nothing lasts forever, including the glass in his hand.
Because he knew it was already broken one day in the future, he didn’t spend his time worrying about losing it. Nor did he take it for granted. Instead, he enjoyed it.
He appreciated the way it felt in his hand, the way the sunlight reflected through it and the purpose it served today. Rather than living in fear of its loss or assuming it would always be there, he simply appreciated it whilst he had it.
I think there is a powerful lesson in that for all of us.
When it comes to the people we love, we often fall into one of two traps. The first is taking them for granted because we assume they’ll always be there. We become used to their presence, their support and their love. We focus on the things that frustrate us rather than the things we cherish about them.
The second trap is fear.
We become so worried about losing people that we forget to fully enjoy them whilst they’re here. We fear change, we fear endings and we fear the inevitable reality that nobody stays forever. Yet both ways of thinking pull us away from the present moment. The truth is that loss is inevitable. Every relationship in our lives will end one day. Some people will be with us for a week, some for a season and some for a lifetime. But none of us are guaranteed forever.
That isn’t meant to make us sad. It’s meant to wake us up.
Because when you truly understand that somebody won’t always be here, something shifts. You become more patient. You become more forgiving. You stop focusing on the little things that irritate you and start appreciating the things that make them special.
The partner who leaves their shoes in the wrong place suddenly becomes the person who always makes you laugh when you’ve had a bad day. The friend who sometimes lets you down becomes the friend who has stood beside you through difficult times. The parent who drives you mad becomes the parent whose voice you would miss terribly if it disappeared tomorrow.
When we remember that the glass is already broken, we stop clinging to it and start appreciating it.
I’d encourage you today to think of five people in your life. As you think about each person, ask yourself a simple question: “What would I miss if they weren’t here?”
Not to create fear. Not to create sadness. But to create gratitude.
Because gratitude is born when we stop assuming something will always be there and start recognising its value today. The inevitable will happen one day. People will leave, circumstances will change and life will continue to move forward, just as it always has. But for now, the glass is still in your hand.
For now, those people are still here.
And perhaps the greatest gift we can give ourselves is to stop taking them for granted, stop fearing their loss and simply treasure them whilst we can.
