Amra Hozic
Block 2
Mrs. Fujii
9 April 2014
Personal Philosophy
“If you spend all your time and
energy on the small things you will never have room for the stuff that is
important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your
happiness.” I once had a conversation with a friend who explained this very
philosophy to me (he called it the jar of life story). Imagine you took a jar
and filled it with golf balls. Is it full? Yes. Then imagine if you poured
pebbles into the jar, and then sand. The jar is completely full now. My friend
continued to tell me that everything in the jar was representative of the things in my life.
To be honest, I laughed at first. He explained golf balls are the important things,
like your family, friends, health and education-and if everything else from the
jar was gone and they only remained, my life would still be full. The pebbles
are other things that matter but not as highly, like a job, car, and house.
Whereas the sand is representative of everything else in life- the small things.
He also said that if you were to put in the sand first, you would not have room
to fit anything else in the jar like the golf balls and pebbles. The same
concept applies to us in real life. And that is where my philosophy comes in. I
had realized that people should focus on the important things in life, instead
of the small petty things that most people wind freaking out about. Instead,
life should be spent with the ones you love and caring for them.
Until then, I had not even realized
that my mother had been teaching me the same philosophy my whole life as well. Ever since I was a little girl my mother had
told me to have my priorities straight and to focus on the important things in
life (the gold balls), while the rest would come at a sooner time (just sand). As young
adults, my parents had to go through a war. Not only did it teach them about
the important things in life, but it also in return taught me through their
stories. If my parents had not focused on the important things during and after
the war, they would not have been able to survive through such a hard time in
their lives. They had lost everything- their house, their young adult lives,
and were even split from their family in another country.
After these experiences I realized
that I need to do the same. A lot of young teens my age focus on things such as
twitter, Facebook and Instagram. It keeps them away from the vital things in
life, and later on most of us will realize what life truly needs to be
concentrated on. I will always admire my parents for being so strong and
focused on what really matters in life. Without that, I most likely would not
live the great life that I do now. Due to these lessons I was able to further
realize that I should always focus on the things that matter in life such as family
and my education, rather than the small things in life. “First, we must take
care of our golf balls then the rest is just sand.”
