Monkey Business

I remember this story told to me sometime ago by my relative from the 'kampung'. Monkeys are trapped in village to help villagers to harvest coconuts from the trees and like many other animals, they do not turn up in front of the villagers and volunteer themselves for the job. They are caught and made to work, whether they like it or not.

Have you ever wonder as agile, quick-witted and fast moving monkeys are, the villagers can still catch/trap them? The technique is simple and it works. They simply placed some peanuts in a bottle of a small opening. The opening has to be large enough for the monkey to insert their hand into it to grab the peanuts and small enough so that they are not able to remove the hand (in the position of a fist) with the peanuts. After the monkey grabs the peanuts, the villagers will come.

The monkey sees the villagers coming and knew he is going to be in deep trouble, but then again, he is not willing to let go of the peanuts. If only he is willing to free his hand, he would not be caught. A simple theory that everyone reading this post would figure out, right?

Reflecting back on ourselves, we can also learn from this ‘monkey story’

Message: All we have to do is to learn to LET GO. We often don’t realise that because of our reluctance to let go of something, we are missing/forgoing a better opportunity in life. And most of the time, the ‘peanuts’ are nothing compared to the ‘freedom’ the monkey is risking. Think bout it.