Controlling my monkey...

Tonight I read a story about a monkey. This monkey was shut inside a small room in a castle tower all alone. With nothing more to do than look out the window at the world outside, the monkey became bored. As the days passed, he grew more and more depressed. His depression turned to anguish, his anguish to torment. He began to see demons around him inflicting all kinds of pain, and he realized he was in Hell. His situation continually got worse and worse, until one day, after an unknown expanse of time, he realized it wasn't such a bad room. And, it was kind of nice looking out onto the world. Bit by bit, the demons left the monkey alone, and he became more and more optimistic, eventually even cheerful. He imagined himself in Paradise, being soothed by angels.

This story is part of an old Indian fable, as read in Life After Death. The gentleman telling the story explains to his audience of one that the monkey is the mind, trapped in the tower of the head. When he is asked if we are all trapped, he answers, "Only if you agree to be trapped. I never said the tower was locked."

This story hit me at the perfect time. I am always thinking to myself how sad it is that people are constantly on guard, thinking others are somehow after them. If I go slow in traffic, I'm purposely making you late for work. If I forget a step on the job, I am purposely adding more work to your plate. If I do anything you don't like, I am to be the object of your anger. I especially feel this way at Christmas. Everyone says that they love the holidays because people are nicer. I have never witnessed this. I have never seen so much road rage as I do in the month of December.

Then, I realized that I do this too. Whenever I am dealing with others, I always imagine the worst case scenario and play it over and over in my head until sometimes I forget that it isn't real. It's like I am building up my guard in case the person reacts in such a way. I did it the other day. A parent emailed me that she wanted to revisit her kid's schedule with me. Well I immediately assumed she wanted to change all these dates and I wouldn't be able to stand for it and I would have to tell her no and she would be rude and and and... and it turns out she only wanted to reschedule one. And she was super nice about it. But I had built her up to be this mean person who was trying to take advantage of me. Why? Because I can't control my monkey. I can't seem to keep it from seeing devils where there are angels.

This story is a good reminder that the world is what we make of it, quite literally. Sure, there will always be crap that happens, and it will be hard to deal with when it does, but if we see the world as a welcoming accepting place, instead of as a warzone, it will become such. It brings to mind a verse from my favorite Jason Mraz song, Live High...

I try to picture the man to always have an open hand
See him as a giving tree, see him as matter
Matter of fact he's not a beast
No, not the devil either, always a good deed doer


Playing with steam. I don't know, sometimes I get very weird ideas.