One day, an expert in time management was speaking to a group of business students and, to drive home a point, used an illustration those students never forgot. As he stood in front of the group of high-powered overachievers he said, "Okay, time for a quiz" and he pulled out a one-gallon, wide-mouth mason jar and set it on the table in front of him.
He also produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar. When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, "Is this jar full?" Everyone in the class yelled, "Yes." The time management expert replied, "Really?" He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. He dumped some gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks. He then asked the group once more, "Is the jar full?" By this time the class was on to him.
"Probably not," one of them answered. "Good!" he replied. He reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in the jar and it went into all of the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, "Is this jar full?" "No!" the class shouted. Once again he said, "Good." Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked at the class and asked, "What is the point of this illustration?" One eager student raised his hand and said, "The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard you can always fit some more things in it!" "No," the speaker replied, "that's not the point.
The truth this illustration teaches us is if you don't put the big rocks in first, you'll never get them in at all. What are the 'big rocks' in your life? Is protecting yourself and thus providing for your family one of them? Remember to put these BIG ROCKS in first or you'll never get them in at all.
Many people say "oh I would really like to take a self-defense course" but when told that they will have to work at it and that it will take quite some time to become proficient it suddenly becomes a "little rock". Most of us would say that health insurance is a "big rock" that should go in our "jar" first but isn't taking self-defense lessons a form of health insurance? After all if you get jumped by that criminal element and you are unprepared mentally and physically then you have failed your part of your own health insurance.