What runneth over?

I came across a post that laid out a simple reality about internal and external realities that affect how we relate to each other. It is an excerpt that has floated around, potentially attributed to the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, though I suspect it is now unattributable internet lore. 

Excuse me for posting it in full before sharing my thoughts:

A Buddhist monk asked his students — if you’re carrying a cup of coffee and someone bumps into you, why did you spill the coffee? 

Each and every one of his student said because someone bumped into me. 

No, he said, the reason why you spilled the coffee is because that’s what you were carrying in your cup. If you were carrying water, you would have spilled water. 

Then he said something profound. 

Whenever life shakes you, whatever you’re carrying is going to spill out. So if you’re carrying fear, jealousy, anger, greed, that’s what’s going to spill out. 

But if you’re carrying love, compassion, kindness, that’s what’s going to spill out. 

So, each and every day, you should pause and think to yourself, what am I carrying in my cup today?

Beyond emotion, which we all get to feel, we also hold information someone else might need to make their workday easier. Those are our cups. We hold experience about how to complete certain projects effectively. We carry creativity, systems-thinking, important contacts. What happens when we cover our cups and huddle ourselves away from potential bumps? 

To create successful communications in an organization, we need to think about what we carry around with us and what we carry it around in. If we are clutching tightly to power, we are no longer part of an organization. 

Organizations gotta spill to grow.