.
Are
you a Bucket Filler or a Dipper?
You have heard of the cup that
overflowed. This is a story of a bucket;
like the cup, only larger. It is an
invisible bucket.
Everyone has
a bucket. 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 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,
listening to him.
When one’s
bucket is full of emotional support, one
can express warmth and friendliness to
others. But remember: this is a theory
about a bucket AND a dipper. Other
people have dippers and they can get
their dippers in our bucket. This, too,
can be done in a million ways.
I am at
dinner and inadvertently upset a glass
of thick, sticky chocolate milk that
spills over the tablecloth onto a lady’s
skirt, and 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
mistake. (Red pencil mentality!)
Buckets are
filled and buckets are emptied; emptied
many times because people don’t really
think about what they are doing or
saying. 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,”
and he doesn’t hear you or negates your
compliment.
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 something to put into his bucket
because he keeps losing his “substance.”
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 only take from
another.
Therefore,
let us put aside our dipper and resolve
to touch someone’s life in order to fill
their bucket … and our own.
--Author
Unknown
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