How We Get Trapped

How to Catch a Monkey

There is a story that says in Africa (and India), the natives use a technique to catch monkeys. They make a jar with a neck just wide enough for a monkeys hand to fit through, tie it to a tree, and put a peanut inside. The monkey comes along, smells the peanut, reaches in and grabs the morsel. But as the monkey tightens his hand around the nut, he makes a fist that is too wide to pull out of the jar. He's trapped. The natives come out of their hiding spot and even though the monkey is pulling with all its might, all the hunter has to do is put a bag over its head and its captured. Perhaps the monkey will be sold for research. Perhaps it will be dinner.

The interesting thing is that all the monkey had to do was to let go of the peanut in its hand, and it could have gone free. Yet it was so intent on holding onto to something it thought was so valuable. It gave up something far greater, its freedom.

What is the peanut in your hand that you are holding onto? It is some possession that owns you? It is some attitude that has come to define you? Is it some offense done to you that you “can’t” let go of? Motivational speakers use this story all the time to inspire people to "let go" of their old perceptions - since in truth, the monkey was never trapped. All he had to do was let go of the peanut to find its freedom.