And now for something completely different. Enjoy.
Category Archives: Stories
Break with Tradition and Choose Your Own Bliss
Once upon a time there was a young peacock, named Roberto. He was a happy peacock, he got enough food, and he had enough friends to play with. One of his favorite games to play with his friends was go see how close they could get to the alligators before running away. Because peacocks can’t fly, it was extremely fun to have to scurry quickly away before getting eaten by the alligator. They didn’t know anybody that had actually been eaten by the alligators, but they all heard of a friend of a next-door neighbors cousin that had tripped while running away, and had never been seen or heard from again. Perhaps this was just a story, or maybe there is some truth to this. Either way they were able to use this to have fun while playing and running away from the alligators.
Lately, though, the young peacocks were talking about a great big meeting of the adult peacocks. Apparently the men and the women would go and meet in a special place, and they would do some kind of secret adult peacock ritual thing, like church or something. The young peacocks didn’t really know what it was all about. And they were too scared to ask the peahens, because well, everybody knows that peacocks and peahens don’t hang out together. It just isn’t cool.
That’s when the rumors started. They said that when young peacocks turn into adults, their feathers change colors. And depending on how much their feathers change, they will become really popular, or not so popular, depending on the color. This caused a great deal of confusion among the young peacocks. Weren’t they already popular? Why did your feathers have anything to do with whether people liked you or not? Pretty soon the two groups, the young peacocks and the young peahens would gather. The peacocks were certain that the peahens were talking about them. They were always whispering and pointing and giggling.
Then one horrible day, young Roberto learned the terrible truth. His father took him aside, and told him how things really were.
“Son, some day you are going to grow some extra feathers. And if you grow really good feathers, you will be popular.”
Roberto gulped, too afraid to ask what would happen if he didn’t grow “really good feathers,” whatever that meant.
His father seemed to sense his apprehension.
“Don’t worry son, you’ll be fine. My father had good feathers, his father had good feathers, and my feathers aren’t too shabby. You’ll be allright.”
Young Roberto, however, wasn’t convinced.
“But what happens if I don’t?”
His father only stood, and walked away.
Three weeks later, Roberto noticed that his feathers were indeed changing. He rushed to meet his friends, some of them also had changing feathers, and some didn’t. They were all confused, and scared. The peahens continued to gather and giggle and point. With every passing day, Roberto and his friends grew more and more anxious. Then one night, he got up the courage to speak with his father.
“Why do they only care about feathers? Isn’t anything else important?” Roberto asked.
His father scratched his head.
“I don’t know son, that’s the way it’s always been.”
“But does it have to be that way?” Robert asked, sensing that his father didn’t have the answers he was looking for.
“I think it does. That’s the way it has always been.” He answered, sounding unsure of himself.
Roberto wasn’t convinced. At all.
The next day he decided to try something different. He gathered his friends, and his courage. He stood up to speak to them.
“Just because everybody before has only cared about feathers, doesn’t mean it has to be that way. You are more than your feathers. It doesn’t matter if your feathers are blue, or green, or the same stupid color as they are now. Who you are on the inside is more important. Your ideas and dreams and goals are what are important. If somebody thinks you are popular only because of your feathers, that’s their problem.”
The crowd of young peacocks was joined, for the first time, by a few brave peahens.
“You mean we can choose on something besides feathers?” A peahen asked.
“Yes!” Roberto answered, the crowd starting to cheer him.
“You can choose based on whatever you want! You don’t have to choose based only on what people before you chose!” The crowd cheered again, the young peahens now mingling with all the young peacocks. They mingled and talked and explored each other’s personalities. Everybody was happy. Everybody was popular, in their own way.
The adult peacocks watched in interest, as the young peacocks and peahens broke with tradition to their own delight and happiness.
“Can they do that?” One older peacock with large, fading red feathers asked.
“I guess they can.” Said another, with a dull set of yellow and oranges feathers, and a large grin on his face.
“I guess they can do whatever they want.” He added.
And from that day on, peacock feathers became only an interesting footnote in peacock history.
The Wisdom of the Dove
Once upon at time there was a dove. He lived in on the outskirts of a rural farming community. Well, he lived in a tree on the outskirts of a rural farming community. It was a farming community that grew wheat that was primarily used in industrial sized bread factories. Because the fields were so large, there was plenty of opportunities for the birds to come and have their fill of wheat without really worrying about putting in a dent in the farmers income. Most people don’t know that doves are actually fairly concerned with the symbiotic relationship they have with their environment. They are really concerned that they don’t over consume, because they know that if they do that, they will damage the area they live in, and they will have to move. While there are still many areas that doves can move to in order to find resources, they are concerned that future generations won’t have enough, so they are careful. But I digress.
This particular dove was starting to have strange feelings about other doves. Not all doves, mind you, only young, lady doves. It was really strange the way it was happening to him. At first, he felt kind of funny, and he didn’t know if he should tell anybody. Maybe they would think he was strange, or different. Maybe they would laugh at him, or even worse. So for a while he didn’t anybody. But then the feeling became too powerful to ignore. Pretty soon it was all that he could think about. When he was with his friends, it didn’t bother him so much. But whenever he found himself near a girl dove that was about the same age as him, the feeling was impossible to ignore. He couldn’t take his mind off of her. He wanted to talk to her. Sometimes he would imagine how wonderful it would be if she were feeling the same things about him as he was feeling about her.
But try as he might, he just couldn’t get up the courage to hop over, and start up a conversation. As much as he had an incredible desire to do so, he kept imagining what would happen if she laughed at him. Or screamed, or called over the adults. What if he really was different? What if this feeling wasn’t normal, and people found out about it, what then? They might even banish him for their town, and he’d have to fly to another town. How would he explain himself? He noticed that the same thing happened every time. He’d see this girl dove, and feel an almost overwhelming desire to go and talk with her, and then his desire would suddenly turn into horrible fears and imaginations of what would happen if something went wrong.
Finally, he decided to share his predicament with somebody. But not just anybody. He decided to talk with his grandfather. His grandfather was the kind of bird that didn’t talk much. But when he did talk, he spoke with incredible wisdom and kindness. Almost everybody regarded him as a very knowledgeable fellow that knew a lot about life. It was said that he had been around since the before times, when it wasn’t so easy to get food. When he spoke, people listened.
So this young dove went to see his grandfather.
“You seem to have a problem.” The grandfather noted, before the young dove even spoke. The young dove was awestruck.
“Let me guess. Girl troubles? You see a girl you like?” the young dove continued to be amazed at his grandfathers insight. He finally spoke up.
“How can I talk to her?” He asked.
“Just like you are talking to me.” He responded.
“But…” The young dove said, trailing off.
“Let me guess. You want to talk to her, but you are afraid of what will happen if you do. ”
“Yes, that’s right.” The young dove said meekly.
The old dove paused, and then spoke.
“Your mind is young, and inexperienced. It is natural. When you focus too much on your fears, they can overcome you. Practice focusing on the good things that might happen. This is what I want you to do. Do not talk to her. Only go near her, and imagine for one minute, one good thing that will happen if you do speak with her. One minute, then go someplace else and occupy your mind with other things. No more than one minute, do you understand?”
The young dove nodded.
“But how many times do I…” The old dove silenced him, and smiled.
“Go! But remember this lesson. You will soon give it to another.” The young dove didn’t know what he meant by that, but he left anyways.
By the time spring came again, this young dove was now the leader of a large family of his own, who adored him greatly.
The Brave Little Gator
Once there was an alligator. He was a small alligator, only a few weeks out of the egg. He was still kind of feeling his way around, only venturing a few meters from his nest. He hadn’t reached the stage where he had to get his own food, as he was still receiving food from his mother. She would periodically leave the nest to go out hunting, and bring back small bites of zebra and kangaroo to feed to the kids. There were sixteen alligators in all. It was a particularly large nest, as most alligator nests only contain seven or so. This alligator mom was particularly lucky with not only the amount of eggs, but that they had all hatched and produced healthy baby alligators. Usually when a mother alligator has so many eggs, there are a few that need to be sacrificed for the good of the many. The mother was quite relieved, to say the least, when she discovered that all of her eggs were healthy.
On the particular day in question of this story, the mom had been gone for longer than normal. She would usually go out for about an hour or so, and then come back with the good. However, it had been over four hours since she left, and they were starting to get hungry, and scared.
“What should we do?”
“Wait. We should wait.”
“I don’t want to wait.”
“But we have to wait. We don’t have any other choice.”
“Maybe she got mad and left us!”
“She didn’t get mad at me, she got mad at you!”
“Did not! Did too!”
And so they previously happy and well taken care of alligator began to argue. Pretty soon, it became dark. The mother alligator still hadn’t returned.
“We are going to die!”
“Maybe she got lost?”
“Maybe she was eaten by another alligator!”
“You idiot, alligators don’t eat each other!”
“She’s lost!”
“How could she get lost, she’ s our mom, she knows everything!”
The more they tried to ignore their hunger and fear in their tiny little alligator nest, the worse it became. Soon they began fighting, and biting each other. Simon, the young alligator who is the focus of this story, decided to climb over the edge of the nest, just to see what was on the other side.
“What are you doing? You want to get killed?”
“I’m just gonna take a look and see what is here.”
“Be careful!”
He climbed up, and looked.
“What do you do see?”
“Nothing, just a bunch of stuff that looks like the same as in here. Except…..bigger. Much bigger.” He had an idea. He looked back down at the young, scared alligators, and then turned to look again at the vastness of the swamp outside of their protective nest.
“Hurry up, and come down before somebody sees you! You’ll get in trouble!”
“I’m not coming down. I’m going out. There has to be food out here, someplace.” Then he disappeared over the edge of the side. The young alligators were horrified. They were sure that he died.
A few days later, two more small alligators climbed up and over the edge, their fear and trepidation overcome by their hunger. They two were never seen again. Another couple of days passed, and a few others got the courage to climb up and over the edge of the next.
A week and a half later, there were only four remains alligators. They were too weak to move by now, and had long given up trying to come up with a reason that their mother had abandoned them. They didn’t noticed when the birds began circling overhead. Nor did they notice, or really care when they came down and perched on the edge of their nest. They had already given themselves up to fate. One by one, the birds leaned in and ate the remaining alligators, until they were all gone.
It only took Simon and his brothers and sisters, a few hours to realize the abundance of food that outside, just waiting to be eaten, waiting to be taken. As Simon grew, and swam through the swamp, his strength and determination increasing with every morsel he hunted, killed, and ate, he realized how wonderful it was to be an alligator. Sometimes he wondered what had happened to his brothers and sisters. But he usually spent his time going after what he wanted. Which was fine with him.
The Sheepherder’s Discovery
As you sit there, and read this page, you might feel certain sensations in your body. Some of these sensations might be familiar, and some of them might be one’s that you’ve felt before. Either way, you can let these feelings remind you of those wonderful memories from before. You know the time I’m talking about. The time you had that experience, the one that made you feel just that way. And it doesn’t really matter if you can remember it completely; because one thing about experiences is that they are completely up to you to remember them any way you like that, right?
So as you let those thoughts that you are thinking circulate in your thought-sphere that exists some place in the realm of ideas, I’d like to borrow your attention for a few moments. Don’t worry; I’ll give it back when we’re finished here. Just relax, because you know that those experiences that you enjoy are really up to you to discover them here, now.
Once up a time there was a sheepherder. His job was to take his sheep from pasture to pasture, and let them graze. When the time came for him to sell their wool, he took them into town to the place that bought the wool. They would sheer the wool from the sheep, and take the wool to make various things. Clothing, blankets, rugs, and other things. The sheep were happy, because they didn’t really have to do much except eat, and get a haircut periodically. The sheepherder didn’t have an overly difficult job, because he just found natural grass for the sheep to eat, made sure the wolves stayed away, and had to find a market for the wool from time to time. All in all, it was a happy life for all of them.
As the character in most stories do, our sheepherder boy encountered a problem one day. He had grown bored with his sheep herding life. At first, when he first got into it, it seemed fantastic. Travel, no boss, make your own hours, it was a young man’s dream come true. But the more the years passed, the more he realized as he traveled from town to town that he was missing out on something. It seemed more and more apparent that the townspeople were enjoying a happiness that wasn’t available to him.
Despite his freedom and detachment from the world, he longed for human companionship. He longed for the touch of a woman, and the warmth of a fire in the fireplace of his own home, and the smell of fresh bread from his own kitchen.
But he didn’t want to lose his sheep. They had served him well over the years, and he couldn’t bring himself to just abandon them. So he decided to have a meeting with his sheep. He hired a sorcerer from a nearby town, as he would have to find a way to communicate his intentions to the sheep, and gauge their responses. The sorcerer claimed to have experiences in these matters. After a long discussion, he was convinced that the sheep would be able to govern themselves, and find their way into town to get their usual haircuts, as they’d been accustomed.
The sheepherder had agreed to take the profits generated by the self governing sheep, and set up a wolf free zone, so sheep could live in safe environment, free from predators. The money would be used to buy special minerals and mix them into a special recipe known only to the sorcerer, thereby keeping the wolves from encroaching on their territory.
When they had finished making the arrangements, everybody was happy.
The now ex-sheep herder boy set off to find the girl of his dreams, and start the exciting journey of his new life. As he was leaving, the sorcerer pulled him aside, to give him some last minute wisdom:
“Life is a long journey. It can be easy or hard, depending on what you make of it. You can find peace, or you can find pain. The greatest secret does not lie in how to get money or how to seduce the most beautiful daughter of a shopkeeper. Nor does it lie in conjuring magic to keep away the wolves. The secret lies in seizing your own power to choose. Once you fully realize that you have always had that magnificent power, the world becomes yours.”
The ex-sheep herder boy thanked him, and wandered off, open to the bliss that was in store for him, and you.
The Fisherman’s Dream
As you read this and sink into that chair that you are sitting in, you might become aware of the thoughts that are running round your head. You know that ones I’m talking about. Those thoughts that are the most familiar to you. The ones that you think the most often. I’m going to ask you to put them aside just for a moment. Don’t worry, you can have them back when we are finished. Of course, they might never be the same. But then again, they never were to begin with, right?
When the old man suddenly realized that the sun had been up for several minutes, he quickly rolled out of bed. He noticed that his alarm hadn’t gone off as he’d hoped. That was ok. He still had plenty of time. He noticed that the fish he’d caught the day before were still where he’d left them. That wasn’t particularly surprising, as it was getting late in the season, and most of the bears had probably found a place to hibernate already. He checked his tackle and set out for another day of fishing.
As he was walking to the lake, he came across a rather large beaver dam. He didn’t recall seeing it yesterday, so he stopped to take a look. He noticed that the beavers were acting particularly strange, but how he knew this he couldn’t really put his finger on it. He decided to stop and watch. He’d been walking for about an hour when he came across the new dam, so he decided it would be as good a place as any to enjoy a quiet break. Something about these beavers was not quite right. The more he watched them, the more he became determined to find out exactly what it was about them that was so intriguing.
He set his bags down, and found a nice spot on the ground to sit. He leaned up against the hard bark of a sycamore tree, and began what was to be the most interesting afternoon of his life.
The beavers seemed to notice him watching, although they didn’t change the procedures, at least as far as he could tell. He was almost mesmerized by their methodical efficiency, scurrying off into the forest and coming back with pieces of tree that were the exact same size that they needed. They would carefully place the piece in just the exact place. Everything in order. It was amazing, the old man thought.
Trees would grow, taking different elements from the ground and the soil and the air and the rain. They would grow over the years, then these animals would come and chew down the trees to dam up the water to build their house. Did the trees mind that they were being taken to build a house? Did the water mind that its course was being changed? Were the beavers aware of all that they were doing?
The man remarked at the impressive way in which things so naturally fit together. So peacefully. So perfectly. Did he belong? Did he really? It was as if the earth itself was giving of one part of itself to help out the other part. As if it were taking resources from one area, that were becoming almost superfluous, and somehow using itself to move those resources to another more helpful self. Like it was constantly rearranging itself to rebuild itself, so it would more easily sustain itself.
The old man wondered why he never had the ability to see things from such a clear perspective. He realized then that everything was cyclical. From the earth to the tree to the water to the ocean back to the sky to the earth. He wondered how this cycle ever began, and how it knew how to sustain itself. Surely there must be some underlying pattern that lies beneath that which is seen?
The old man awoke, after having dozed off while watching the beavers. Their dam was complete. The sun had begun to set off in the west. The old man realized that he’s missed his opportunity to catch more fish. That was all right, he had enough to last him through a couple of weeks, and a couple of weeks would be enough to allow him to catch enough to keep for the winter.
As he walked back to his cabin, which would soon be warmed by the fire he would build, he wondered vaguely how the bears were doing. It will be good to see them again in the spring, he thought.
The Lumberjack and the Printing Press
Once there was an old lumberjack. He had been a lumberjack for most of his youth, starting when he was around thirteen. If that sounds a bit young to be earning a living from hard labor, you might consider that back in his day, those that didn’t work, didn’t eat. So naturally, this person decided to choose the best course of action, which was to maximize skills that he’d been given. And his particular skills were in swinging an ax. There was a group of lumberjacks who were passing through town when he was a boy, and asked around where they were going. He hadn’t known anything about lumberjacks at that time. He just became incredibly curious at the sight of all these big powerful men rumbling through town.
He asked what this was, and he was told that it was a crew going up to the forest to cut down some trees. They were building another town nearby,and they needed the wood. So the young lumberjack to be decided to follow this, to see where it would lead. He followed them long enough for them to notice him, and when they saw how well he could swing an ax, he naturally joined them. He followed them around for several years, chopping different kinds of trees to get wood, so they could build more houses, because the population was quickly growing.
As he started to get older, he noticed that his group of lumberjacks was slowly becoming smaller and smaller. There were less and less young boys that wanted to join. They had other, more modern interests. And as the group of lumberjacks began to shrink, so did the need for wood. They would spend seemingly endless nights arguing whether the decrease in lumberjacks was causing the decrease in demand for wood, or if the shrinking demand for wood was the reason for the dwindling group of lumberjacks.
That had been long ago, and this lumberjack was growing old. He still carried around his ax, the one they’d given him when he chopped down his one thousandth tree. That was not an easy milestone to reach, so they gave him not an easy ax to lift. It was heavier than all the other ax’s he’d carried with him before. But how, as he became older with every passing day, the ax seemed to be getting heavier and heavier. A small voice kept telling him to get rid of it, because it wasn’t worth anything. But he knew that if he did that, he might well die, because lumber jacking had been his life, and getting rid of this old ax would have meant throwing away a lifetime of memories. He just couldn’t bring himself to do.
As time passed, the ax became more and more an embarrassing burden. He started to question it. He started to question the value of the old ax. Everywhere he went, people would point and whisper. They had never seen a real lumberjack. They all thought they only lived in stories. The lumberjack became more and more distressed. Each day that passed, each chuckle he heard behind his back would cause him anxiety. What to do with this old ax?
Then one day he was walking down a rather large street. His ax was slung over his shoulder, and his head was drooped down low. He knew people were staring, but he couldn’t bear the embarrassment of meeting their eyes. Then, for some reason, which he would later describe as divine inspiration despite the fact he’d never been inside a church, he immediately spun around. He saw people frantically trying to help a man who appeared to be partially inside a printing press. There had recently been a newspaper in town, and the printing press had printed out a newspaper three times a week. They man’s arm was caught in the machine, and the people helping him were desperately trying to pull him out. It didn’t appear they were having much luck. The lumberjack realized that if they didn’t help him, he would be killed.
“Stand back!” He yelled in his booming voice. The people parted, and the lumberjack swung his ax over his head, and heaved it towards the machine. It swirled through the air, end over end, until the head was buried into the printing press with an ominous metallic clank, as the onlookers gasped in horror. The machine was stopped, and the man was freed. The crowd looked at the lumberjack in awe.
“You saved my life,” the man meekly said to him.
“I guess I did,” said the lumberjack, who smiled, closed his eyes, and breathed his last.
The townspeople took the ax which saved their mayors life, and put it up in the center of town, in honor of the unknown lumberjack, where it remains to this very day.
The Courage of the Crow
Once there was a small crow. He lived in a decent sized town, where there was plenty of food. Normally crows that live in the jungle have to worry about other birds, especially young crows like this one. But because this crow lived in the city, he was really only worried about other crows getting the food before he did. He didn’t have any brothers or sisters, so he still depended on his dad to show him where the food was, and to help him get it. One day, his dad landed quietly next to him on the telephone wire where he was sitting.
“Son, we need to have a talk.” His father began.
The young crow didn’t’ like this one bit. You know how it is. When somebody sits down with you and starts with “we need to have a talk,” it never is to tell you that you’ve won the lottery, or school has been canceled or anything else good like that. It’s usually when you got in trouble or some other bad thing is about to happen. You know the feeling.
The young crow gulped. “Yea? About what?”
“Well, son,” the father began, putting his wing around the boy. “You are getting pretty old. I know it’s hard with your mom gone and all, but you need to figure out how to get your own food.” The young crow gasped in shock. Get his own food? That would mean fighting with the other, older bigger crows, wouldn’t it? They would never let him get near the good stuff. He’d have to eat the stuff they didn’t want. His mind instantly swirled with thoughts of being outcast from the crow community, not having any friends, not having any respect. Never being able to grow up and develop a crow family. He became nervous, scared, afraid. Like he was when he still lived in the nest, and his mom would bring him food. He missed her.
“But why can’t you help me?” he asked his dad.
“You need to learn how to get food for yourself.” The dad said, and prepared to fly away.
“Where are you going? How will I know what to do?” the young crow asked in desperation.
“You will find a way. You are a crow. You will know.” With that he left.
For the next few days, the young crow was too afraid to go down where the other, bigger crows were pecking through the trash and having their fill of large pieces of discarded food. The more he watched the other crows, the more frightened he became. He hadn’t eaten in several days, and he was becoming weak. Surely if he tried to get some of the food, even the leftovers that the crows didn’t want, they would easily chase him away. Even worse. He noticed that the crows were starting to look at him, and he was sure they were talking about him.
After another couple days of sitting, and watching, and imagining the certain horrible death he would experience if he tried to get some food, he reached the breaking point. The point that you realize you have to do something. You have to make a choice, and follow through with your choice. Because if you don’t act, you will certainly fail. The young crow got to the point where the pain of inaction was getting larger than any imagined pain of action. Summoning all of his energy and courage, he opened his wings and glided down, landing clumsily next to the trash heap. He was more than a little surprised when a couple of bigger, stronger crows jumped, startled, when he landed. The young crow took a deep breath, expanding his lungs, making himself appear slightly larger.
The two nearest crows hopped back, just a little bit, eyeing him carefully. One of them bent down and leaned toward a piece of meat. The young crow immediately hopped forward, not questioning where his sudden strength and courage came from, only accepting them. He reached the piece of meat before the other crow and stood, meat in beak, staring at them defiantly. He quickly gobbled the meat down. He looked around the trash heap, and found a piece of meat, then another, and then another. Finally having eaten his fill, he hopped back into the shade, and watched the other crows feed.
When the other crows were finished eating, they hopped over into the shade. After exchanging introductions, they explained the schedule.
“On Tuesdays and Fridays are when they throw away the good stuff. The rest of the days is glass and other stuff that we can’t eat.”
“What do you do on the days in between?” The other crows looked at each other and smiled.
“C’mon, we’ll show you.” And they all flew of together.
Several months later, the young crow, who was rapidly becoming not so young, happened across his father on telephone wire.
“Father.”
“Son.”
“What did you learn?”
“That fear is only your imagination. As soon as you face fear, it disappears.”
“Very good, son. Do you know why I didn’t just tell you that?”
The not so young crow thought, and remembered how startled he’d been when he’d first discovered his courage.
“The only way to know something like that is to experience it, yourself.”
“Very good, son. You now know the secret.”
They both sat in silence for several minutes, until the not so young crow saw his new friends flying high across the sky. He looked briefly to his father, bowed his head quickly in respect, and then took off.
The Parable of the Tree and the Rock
Once upon a time there were two friends. They were really good friends, and had been really good friends for several hundred years. One was a rock, a large rock. This rock, in his current, state,was only partially above the ground. There was a lot more of this rock below the surface. Sometimes things are like that, you have this small part sticking up, but you don’t realize that there is a fantastic amount of depth here. And no matter how much you dig into this, there is still more to discover. The other friend was a tree. A big evergreen tree.
The two friends lived high up in the mountains. They lived near the tree line, which is the border between where trees grow, and where they can’t grow. Being on the border is convenient, most of the time. You can enjoy both worlds, because you really live in both. You can enjoy the openness and fresh air of the side where trees don’t grow, and you can enjoy the companionship of other trees and animals and squirrels where the trees grow. The rock of course, doesn’t care, because he is a rock. All he needs is a piece of ground to anchor himself to.
Of course, there are other rocks, that aren’t fixed. They have a whole different set of circumstances. They can roll around, finding themselves sometimes on land, sometimes under water. The funny thing is that rocks that are stuck in the ground sometimes feel envious of the rocks that can roll around, and vice versa. The truth is that you can really enjoy who you are, regardless of your situation.
So one day the tree and the rock were talking. The tree seemed worried. Because he was an evergreen tree, he needed a fairly consistent source of water. The rock, of course, being a rock, didn’t really need that. However, he was kind, and because they were good friends, he would listen to his friend the tree when he had difficulties.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do!” said the tree. “It hasn’t rained in a long time!” The rock could understand the problem, as the trees hadn’t been looking to well lately. It seemed that there had been some kind of change recently, and the water hadn’t been flowing as much as it used to.
“What do you think I should do?” The tree asked.
“Hmm. Let me think about it, and I’ll get back to you.”
A few weeks went by, (of course without any rain) and the tree was getting more and more desperate.
“I think I have something,” The rock said one day.
“Maybe you should try something different?” The rock suggested.
“But I don’t know what to do. I’m only a tree,” he replied. Now the rock was very smart, because he was very old. The tree was only several hundred years old, but the rock had been born in the time of volcanoes, and so he had a lot of experience in these matters. He had watched many things come and go, and many different friends he had made over the years had died.
“All of my old friends, they died, because they all had the same excuse. The dinosaurs said they are only dinosaurs. And look what happened to them. You must be innovative. You must do something different. How else can you find a flow of life sustaining water?”
“But isn’t the rain the only way?”
“No, It is not. Look, over there,” the rock said. The tree wasn’t sure which way he was pointing, because the rock, being a rock, didn’t have any arms to point with. Finally, the trees saw. The lake. The pristine lake off just above the tree line, surrounded by nothing but rocks. Rocks that don’t need water.
“Can you grow your roots over towards that lake?” the rock suggested.
“I’ll try.”
Several weeks past. One by one, the other trees of the forest succumbed to the dryness. One day, the rock woke up, and noticed the tree looked a bit more greener than usual.
“You look like you are feeling better today, old friend!”
“Yes!” the tree happily replied.
“I finally got some water to the lake. Look at all that water! I can drink from the lake for hundreds of years without rain now!”
The rock smiled inwardly.
“You see, my friend? Because you were able to reach out for what you needed, instead of waiting for it to come to you, you have lived, while your friends have died. “
The tree smiled, and nodded his thanks.
How to Control Your Happiness
Once there was a tiny field mouse. He was scurrying around, hurrying up to catch up with all the other field mice. He lived kind of far from the main mouse activity center, so he always felt like he was running late. He would always show up on time, and even as he put his socks and shoes on, while his wife was telling he had plenty of time, he still felt like he was late.
One day he had a day off. It was a Tuesday, so he didn’t really get a three day weekend, but it almost seemed like it. Because Sunday night, instead of getting depressed like he usually did when he started to go to bed, he actually felt pretty good. Because even though the next day was Monday, it was really like a Friday. So he was in a pretty good mood. And he played a little extra with his kids, and they all had a fun Sunday night. Because the little mouse kids were in the same boat. For this particular week, Monday was the new Friday.
As he was laying in bed, he started having a conversation with his wife. Because like every other Sunday, he knew that he had to go to bed at the same time, and the kids knew they had to get up at the same time, but they all seemed a lot happier than a normal Sunday. The little mouse couldn’t really understand it, because even the same programs were on TV that night. Everything was the same, but it felt different.
Of course his wife, being the wise mouse that she was told him that it was because of his state of mind. She was saying that when you have a state of mind based on positive expectations about the future, you can feel better and happier, and enjoy life more. It doesn’t really matter what the future brings, because the future actually never comes. It’s always now. Mr. Mouse seemed a bit puzzled by this, but Mrs. Mouse explained it thusly:
The future is only a guess of what is to come, and the past is only an incorrect memory. Most mice think that the past is solid and it happened just as you remembered it, but if you dig into your memories, you’ll realize that not only are they not entirely accurate, but sometimes they are completely made up. Which is why it’s good to always try something a little bit before withholding judgment.
But Mr. Mouse still wasn’t convinced. He said he was happy, of course, because he knew there was an unusual holiday coming up. That was why everybody was in a good mood, because they all had a holiday coming up on Tuesday, when they didn’t have to go to work or school.
Of course, Mrs. Mouse, not to be outdone, countered by asking Mr. Mouse why he allowed other people to tell him when he was permitted to feel happy or not. Why do you let a bunch of mice you never met before to decide on a holiday for you to be happy inside your own mind? Did they plant a robot chip inside your brain when you weren’t looking, so they could control your thoughts from a secret building outside of the Mice Territory? Of course not. Your thoughts belong to you, and you can think them any way you want. You can even choose not to think them, if you think that will help.
Mr. Mouse seemed a bit confused, but he knew better than to blame his wife. She usually knew what she was talking about.