A Seminar on Balloons
- icmarquez
- Nov 6, 2017
- 2 min read
Google Image
There was once a class of 50 people attending a seminar. The speaker started…
“You will each be given a balloon, kindly label it with your name using a marker pen.”
So the facilitators gave each student a balloon and a marker pen to label it.
After being labeled, all the balloons were collected and put in another room. The speaker continued…
“Now, you will all enter the room where the balloons are kept. The goal is to find the balloon with your name written on it within 5 minutes.”
So the students were let in that room. As everyone gets ready, the speaker started the countdown…
“Timer starts in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. . . Go!”
Everyone was frantically searching for their name, pushing, colliding with each other, and there was utter chaos.
At the end of 5 minutes, no one could find their own balloon.
The speaker then said…
“Why don’t we try it again in a different approach? Each one of you will now randomly collect a balloon and give it to the person whose name is written on it.”
The students did as they were instructed and everyone had their own balloon within 5 minutes.
Disclaimer: Story above is not mine.
As I read this story, I realized that this is exactly happening today.
Most people are frantically looking for their own happiness.
Perhaps it has been brought about by what is being promoted by media today – personal gratification.
Popular culture promotes feeling good rather than being good, and you can easily see this portrayed on advertisements.
They define happiness by feelings, which is a very skewed way of viewing it because our feelings change from time to time. It is never constant.
True happiness comes from helping other people. I have personally experienced this sense of fulfillment when I saw other people smile and gain hope.
Fulfillment is different because it lasts for a lifetime compared to temporary happiness.
This is the reason why the Bible tells us that the heart is deceitful and that God commands us to love one another.
We are not designed to live our lives in pursuit of our selfish desires.
Instead, we are designed to live a life of service to others.
When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.
- Maya Angelou
Questions to reflect on:
How do you now define happiness?
The next time you have a conflict with someone, why not think of how you can best serve him/her?
How can you serve people in your work?
Whether you are interacting with a person or not, know that you are serving someone indirectly.
Scripture References:
“Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.”
Philippians 2:3 HCSB
“This is My command: Love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends.”
John 15:12-13 HCSB
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”
Jeremiah 17:9 ESV
Comments