|
You have heard of the cup that overflowed. This is a story of
a bucket that is like the cup, only larger, it is an invisible
bucket. Everyone has one. It determines how we feel about
ourselves, about others, and how we get along with people.
Have you ever experienced a series of very favorable things
which made you want to be good to people for a week? At that
time, your bucket was full.
A
bucket can be filled by a lot of things that happen. When a
person speaks to you, recognizing you as a human being, your
bucket is filled a little. Even more if he calls you by name,
especially if it is the name you like to be called. If he
compliments you on your dress or on a job well done, the level
in your bucket goes up still higher. There must be a million
ways to raise the level in another's bucket. Writing a
friendly letter, remembering something that is special to him,
knowing the names of his children, expressing sympathy for his
loss, giving him a hand when his work is heavy, taking time
for conversation, or, perhaps more important, listing to him.
When one's bucket is full of this emotional support, one can
express warmth and friendliness to people. But, remember, this
is a theory about a bucket and a dipper. Other people have
dippers and they can get their dippers in your bucket. This,
too, can be done in a million ways.
Lets say I am at a dinner and inadvertently upset a glass of
thick, sticky chocolate milk that spills over the table cloth,
on a lady's skirt, down onto the carpet. I am embarrassed.
"Bright Eyes" across the table says, "You upset that glass of
chocolate milk." I made a mistake, I know I did, and then he
told me about it! He got his dipper in my bucket! Think of the
times a person makes a mistake, feels terrible about it, only
to have someone tell him about the known mistake ("Red pencil"
mentality!)
Buckets are filled and buckets are emptied ? emptied many
times because people don't really think about what are doing.
When a person's bucket is emptied, he is very different than
when it is full. You say to a person whose bucket is empty,
"That is a pretty tie you have," and he may reply in a very
irritated, defensive manner.
Although there is a limit to such an analogy, there are people
who seem to have holes in their buckets. When a person has a
hole in his bucket, he irritates lots of people by trying to
get his dipper in their buckets. This is when he really needs
somebody to pour it in his bucket because he keeps losing.
The story of our lives is the interplay of the bucket and the
dipper. Everyone has both. The unyielding secret of the bucket
and the dipper is that when you fill another's bucket it does
not take anything out of your own bucket. The level in our own
bucket gets higher when we fill another's, and, on the other
hand, when we dip into another's bucket we do not fill our own
... we lose a little.
For a variety of reasons, people hesitate filling the bucket
of another and consequently do not experience the fun, joy,
happiness, fulfillment, and satisfaction connected with making
another person happy. Some reasons for this hesitancy are that
people think it sounds "fakey," or the other person will be
suspicious of the motive, or it is "brown-nosing."
Therefore, let us put aside our dipper and resolve to touch
someone's life in order to fill their bucket. |