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 The Marble Story

 



On January 22, 2001, Rhonda sent me this e-mail which had
been forwarded to her. The original author is unknown.

 

Subject: Saturday Mornings

The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it's the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.

A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the kitchen, with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time.

Let me tell you about it.

I turned the volume up on my radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning talk show. I heard an older sounding chap with a golden voice. You know the kind, he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business himself.

He was talking about "a thousand marbles" to someone named "Tom".

I was intrigued and sat down to listen to what he had to say.

"Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure they pay you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. Too bad you missed your daughter's dance recital."

He continued, "Let me tell you something Tom, something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities." And that's when 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 seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five 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 their entire lifetime.

Now stick with me Tom, I'm getting to the important part."

"It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail", he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy."

"So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round-up 1000 marbles.

I took them home and put them inside of a large, clear plastic container right here in my workshop next to the radio. 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 signoff with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday then God has blessed me with a little extra time to be with my loved ones...

"It was nice to talk to you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your loved ones, and I hope to meet you again someday. Have a good morning!"

You could have heard a pin drop when he finished. Even the show's moderator didn't have anything to say for a few moments. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to do some work that morning, then go to the gym. 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.

"Oh, nothing special," I said. " It has just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. Hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out?

I need to buy some marbles."

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND AND MAY ALL SATURDAYS BE SPECIAL AND MAY YOU HAVE MANY HAPPY YEARS... AFTER YOU LOSE ALL YOUR MARBLES.



 
Our Marbles


 


Our first marble gets tossed
May 6, 2001


Yikes...my 60th birthday!



I don't even know if it was true. But what a great story.

I went out and purchased 1300 marbles and we put them in a glass container in our living room. Starting in May 2001 (right after my 50th birthday) every Sunday evening, we remove one marble and toss it out in the recycle bin and talk about our "marbleous" weekend.

In the summer of 2002, for the first time I noticed the declining level of marbles (I had marked the jar when full). It's a little spooky. But time passes at the same rate for everyone, eh? Personally, I find it more valuable being aware of how precious (and finite) it all is.

If you don't yet, you will.

Update, May 2006: Just had my 55th birthday - 1/5th of the marbles are gone. (Yikes, has it been five years??????)

Another update, May 2011: My 60th birthday - it's been 10 years since we started this. Watching the level go down is like watching an hour glass in slow motion - except that is seems like it's speeding up.