How much TIME do you have left? 3900 Saturday Mornings & the Story of 1,000 Marbles

by LUKEWARM 4 Replies latest jw friends

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  LUKEWARM

  Here is a very powerful story that really makes you think.
  
  It reminds me to enjoy every moment and not waste time on things that do not matter - like the useless JW treadmill of activity.
  
  It's a story of a man who had developed a philosophy about the priorities of life. He called it his "Thousand Marbles" theory.
  
  Hope you like it
  
  Lukewarm
  
  
  1,000 Marbles
  "A Little Something about Precious Time"
  Written by Jeffrey Davis © 1999 All Rights Reserved
  
  
  "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 basement shack 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 dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know the kind, he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. He was telling whoever he was talking with something about "a thousand marbles".
  
  I was intrigued and stopped 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 the shack next to my gear. 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 sign-off 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 I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time."
  
  "It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band.
  
  73 Old Man, this is K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!" You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter. 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, it's 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."

  .
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  miseryloveselders

  I wasn't planning on logging in, as I was content just to breeze through the active topics. I had to log on and say thanks for posting this. That was good. I've wasted far more Saturday mornings than I care to remember. I'll be wasting tommorrow morning as well. Get this, I'm preparing right now, at this very time, I'm preparing how I'm going to lead a group of people so that we can all waste our Saturday morning together. Misery loves company I guess, no pun intended!!

  Again, thanks for posting that. It almost makes me want to go out and get some marbles. I've never shot marbles.
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  NewYork44M

  Very nice story, thank you. Any ex jw can relate to the power of this story. Howmany marbles did you waste promoting the interests of the watchtower realestate development corporation? I know I wasted too many.
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  cult classic

  Nothing like a health dose of perspective.
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  WTWizard

  You could also do it with money. How often the witlesses refuse to work certain hours or restrict themselves from certain jobs because it interferes with theocraptic activities or "is against the Bible". Each hour they throw away costs them a certain amount of money--because of currency fluctuations, I will use gold (the most stable money) as the example. You could have made 0.07 ounces of gold every hour you were offered (and sometimes more--depending on if you had a better job or were working a holiday). But, you refuse to work because it would take away from a boasting session or field circus, or required you to "sin". This amount is just slightly more than 2 grams of gold. Which could be illustrated by taking 2 gold grains each weighing 1 gram out of your jar and throwing it away each time you refuse an hour of work because of the religion.

  And, how many hours do you waste going out in field circus? Starting from the time you start preparing and ending your time when you are back to normal (and most witlesses don't do that), imagine losing 1 of those gold pellets per half-hour doing this. Yes, this includes time wasted picking up suits from the dry cleaners or getting gas for your car so you can keep going in field circus. Get just 10 hours a month (which is what they like witlesses to get) in 4 sessions, and you are actually wasting closer to 15 hours. Throw in another 12 hours a month on boasting sessions (or 15, depending on how many "extra" boasting sessions are in your month, it adds up to 60 grams of gold thrown away in a month. You will waste an estimated 380 hours, or 760 grams of gold, per year not including hold ups, a$$emblies, and hounder meetings. Throw in the a$$emblies, you are easily wasting another 55 or 60 hours (110-120 grams of gold) per year, and that could be more if you have extensive preparations.

  So far, you are wasting the equivalent of 880 grams of gold per year. (Hounders will end up wasting more, because they have to worry about congregation affairs as well as their own personal misery). If a person is in the cancer only 20 years before turning apostate or dying, that person has lost the equivalent of 17,600 grams of gold. A person in the cancer 60 years and not dying prematurely will lose 52,800 grams of gold worth of time (not to mention the amount wasted on supplies and donations, and lost opportunities to earn money). To put that in perspective, that is 1862 ounces (avoirdupius), or 116 pounds of gold. This is roughly 1750 troy ounces of gold, today valued at $1,400 per troy ounce. At today's prices, a person in the cancer for 60 years doing enough to be in exemplary standing is wasting the equivalent of $2,464,000 in today's dollars before total collapse! That is a huge amount of value lost in free time wasted.

  And, what do the witlesses get compensated for for this loss? Do they create $2,464,000 worth of personal gain, wealth for society, or other personal benefit? Do they even create $2,464,000 worth of benefit for the Washtowel Babble and Crap Slaveholdery doing this? And that doesn't even include the amount of money wasted on supplies or lost because they can't find a high paying job because "it is against the religion"! This really ought to pxxx off anyone that has wasted 20 years in the cancer or deter anyone that is thinking of joining.