How do you prefer to drink your salt?

An aging Hindu master grew tired of his apprentice complaining, and so, one morning, sent him for some salt. When the apprentice returned, the master instructed the unhappy young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it. “How does it taste?” the master asked. “Bitter,” spat the apprentice. 

The master then asked the young man to take another handful of salt and put it in the lake nearby. Once the apprentice swirled his handful of salt in the water, the old man said, “Now drink from the lake.” As the water dripped down the young man’s chin, the master asked, “How does it taste?” “Fresh,” remarked the apprentice. “Do you taste the salt?” asked the master. “No,” said the young man.

At this, the master took the young man’s hands, offering, “The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains exactly the same. However, the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things . . .Stop being a glass. Become a lake.”

~Author unknown

I heard this last night while watching the Hallmark movie based on Mitch Albom’s book “Have a Little Faith.”  It really had me thinking and my husband reminded me of it this morning.

I love this because it’s absolutely true.  It just makes sense to me. We all have pain in our life, something happens that we don’t expect.  It can be physical, emotional or spiritual pain.  But what we do with that pain is what matters.  The pain is there for sure.  We can put all of our energy to it and focus only on the pain we have or we can acknowledge that it’s there while we remember all of the other things going on in our life that is not painful.  We can focus on all the things that make us feel better, the things we are grateful for, the good things that need our attention.  We can focus on a positive outcome and what we need to do to get to that better feeling place.  We can be proactive with our pain and decide what we need to do in order to feel better and take those steps to get there.  They could be baby steps or big, giant leaps.  But if we only sit around and focus on the pain, we will certainly keep the pain around.

Changing the focus....or dissolving the salt in the lake rather than a glass, lessens the bitter taste and makes it much easier to drink.

Today, I will think like a lake instead of a glass.  What about you?

Glass picture: http://www.widescreenwallpapers.org/
Lake picture: http://www.freenaturepictures.com/