Don’t Reach for the Bananas… Go through the Door
There was once and experiment where a monkey had a bunch of bananas dropped just outside of his cage. These bananas were close enough to be seen but just out of his reach if he tried to grab them through the bars. As soon as the monkey saw the bananas the door to the cage, which was on the side opposite of the pile of bananas, opened up. The monkey in the cage (not realizing he was free) would strain and strain at the bars and attempt to reach the bananas through them, which was impossible by mere inches, and his endeavor was doomed to failure. The point of the experiment was to demonstrate how if the monkey would just, stop turn around, and look at the open door he could leave the cage and have as many bananas as he wants. This is our relationship to all things we would have in our lives up to and including happiness itself.
Life for so many people seems so frustrating and unfulfilled because they are attempting to gain by straining and reaching. They sit and push at the bars of their lives, desperate to get the smallest of payoffs, all while missing the fact that the door on the other side of the cage is open and ultimately failing to realize that the cage they think they are in (from practical standpoint) does not exist. The way to gain in this world, the open door to the wonders and riches of this life is generosity. Rather than straining to take in order to possess, you must choose to and learn to give whatever you want in life.
If you want Love, then you must give Love, whether it takes the form of compassion, forgiveness, random acts of kindness, or some other shape it does not matter, you must be willing to give them. If you want abundance and prosperity, then you must give of your self and be a servant of the needs of others. If you want happiness, then you must learn to smile and contribute to the wellbeing of others. It really is that simple. Choose to switch your perspective on life.
It is essential to understand that things only become real to you when you begin to give them and, the best thing about this is, you are in total control of it’s presence in your life. The presence of Love in your life, for example, is not up to other people, it is up to you and you alone. Those around you can be the most rude, insensitive people in the world, but both you and your life will be full of Love, because you have decided that Love should be there. Choose to give and be open to receiving.