Deep Thinking: Mayonnaise Jar & Two Beers

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 Beers.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.
When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.
He then asked the students if the jar was full.
They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar He shook the jar lightly.
The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.
He then asked the students again if the jar was full.
They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.
Of course, the sand filled up everything else.
He asked once more if the jar was full.
The students responded with a unanimous ‘yes.’

The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand.
The students laughed..

‘Now,’ said the professor as the laughter subsided, ‘I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.
The golf balls are the important things—your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions—and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.

The sand is everything else—the small stuff.
‘If you put the sand into the jar first,’ he continued, ‘there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.
The same goes for life.
If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.
Spend time with your children.
Spend time with your parents.
Visit with grandparents.
Take time to get medical checkups.
Take your spouse out to dinner.
Play another 18.
There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal.
Take care of the golf balls first—the things that really matter.
Set your priorities.
The rest is just sand.
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented.
The professor smiled and said, ‘I’m glad you asked.’

The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.

***This is not an original piece here on Brew Union. It was forwarded to me from Seth. I have scoured the inter-web for the original author of this and found nothing. So to the orginal author–whoever and where ever you are. Cheers! Well done.

Who Are You Guys?

Seriously, who are we? Well our mission or our purpose is covered in the About Brew Union page. So I won’t get into that, because that would just be rehashing the same stuff. And that is counter-productive. At Brew Union we have a saying, “Being counter-productive is when you drink a light beer. You spend more time urinating than you do drinking.”

First, Brew Union has a core of four guys (it has grown to include more): Seth, Dane, Nate and Jacob. Unfortunately for Jacob, he lives 5 hours away from the other three, so he was physically on the outside looking in at the early stages, but he was there spiritually, emotionally and on the phone. That’s the background on the people. To get to know more about them, check out their author pages an’such. Now more on Brew Union.

Brew Union has been around a little over a year now. Well, at least the idea of it has been. The idea of Brew Union started brewing when a brand spanking new brewery opened up in our area. That was the fuel for our fire. The spark was when their beer showed up on tap at our preferred location of consumption.

For whatever reason when I drank my local brewery’s beer for the first time there were fireworks in my head. That might be hyperbole, but that is the truth. From there we started the conversations about Brew Union.

The next steps were subtle and slow. What could we do to immerse ourselves into the world of craft beer? We didn’t just want to make the switch to drinking craft beers. We wanted to go the distance. We wanted to live it, breathe it and be it. When we decided that, the next steps were easy. The best way to learn about the culture and the world was to go to it. With that idea we decided a brew tour was in order. That’s where the idea of a road trip that would take us over a good chunk of the country and drop us into world of beer came from.

What a success the trip was. We’ll go over it in more detail on other posts, but it turned our smoldering passion for craft beer into a firestorm. The success came not from the beer we had (which was good) but from the people we met. The people we met and continue to meet are the motivation behind Brew Union.

From that point to now has been all about keeping the idea alive and strong. We started home brewing shortly after the first tour. We brewed and drank. And now we are here building on that dream. This is the next and biggest step.

Brew Union’s headquarters or “lair” is in the Kansas City metro area on the Kansas side. That is our backyard and where we spend our time drinking and what not. So hopefully we are not too much of a homer for our local breweries. Got to support your local brewery right?