The Bag of Marbles

A man had lost his job.  He had an interview for a new job, but traffic kept him from making the appointment.  The lottery ticket he bought that day didn't even win.  He was having a bad day.

After dinner, he went for a walk along the beach.  As he strolled along, barefoot in the sand, with the sun setting in the West, his foot struck something.  He reached down and picked it up.  It was a small bag full of marbles.  "Just my luck," he thought.

Then, he had an idea. He took a marble out of the bag and tossed it into the sea as he said, “This for that stupid job.  I didn't like that job anyway.”

“That felt good,” he said as he took out the second marble. "This is for traffic.  I hate traffic."

“That felt really good,” he said as he grabbed the next one.

This went on for the better part of an hour. In the beginning, the marbles went pretty fast. As he was getting to the bottom of the bag, he really had to think. But, over the course of that hour, he had let go of all of the things that had been holding him back.  He had two marbles left. He took one of them in his hand and said, “Here is for all of the good choices I am going to make going forward in my life." He threw that marble as hard as he had ever thrown anything in his life. As he heard in plunk in the water, he decided to keep the last marble as a memory of this night. He had not felt so good in a long time. He had thrown all of his troubles into the sea and he was ready for a new beginning. He put the marble in his pocket and went home with a new bounce in his step.

At home, his wife noticed a difference in him right away. She asked, "What have you been up to?"

He smiled and took the marble out of his pocket and showed it to her. He was going to tell her how he threw all of his troubles into the sea and he was ready for a fresh start.

Before he could say a word, she said, “What a beautiful Pearl. Where did you get it?”

He looked at his hand. He was, in fact, holding an absolutely beautiful pearl. A pearl that would change their lives, forever. He sold the pearl and paid all of their debt and did get that new beginning. From time to time he thought about that walk along the beach. His old self would have been full of self pity for all the pearls he threw away. His new self knew that is was the best walk he had ever taken.

There three morals to this story:

The first moral is:

What looks like a bag of marbles may be a bag of pearls -  These pearls are your friends and your family.  Your clients and your referral partners.  Your neighbors and anyone else you associate with.  Are you shining these pearls and wearing them proudly.  Or, are you throwing them away one by one?

The second moral is:

When you let go of your troubles good things will happen to you.  So many people are focused on all of the negative situations around them and they never see the amazing world that is right in front of them.

And, finally, the most important moral of this story is:

When you bring home a pearl to mamma, she will be happy.  And, when mamma is happy, nothing else matters.