On when things don’t go our way | Essay Snacks 007
Let go of the banana
Welcome to Essay Snacks — a series of mini essays created to foster more real-time sharing of ideas that have piqued my interest. If you’re someone who enjoys learning about how to live a good life, then this is for you.
In his song “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy),” John Lennon sings: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
We know how it goes — we plan, plan, plan — crossing our t’s and dotting our i’s. We follow a schedule. Show up at this place at this time. Make travel arrangements to explore a city.
Planning is our attempt to control this confusing world we live in. We plan all the various scenarios, as if living by our calendar and checking off all the to-dos means that nothing bad can happen. We plan for things to go our way.
Inevitably, things don’t go our way. And, when they don’t, we realize how much we depend on them to. How much we cling to our way.
It’s like that story of the monkey who reaches his hand into a jar to get a banana, only to find out that the mouth of the jar isn’t wide enough to pull his hand out with the banana. He spends all this time and energy trying to get the banana out, not realizing he’s trapping himself by staying in one place. Then, the monkey hunter captures him.
All of us have been the monkey at some point, insistent on holding onto bananas that take the form of limiting beliefs, people we’ve outgrown, or pre-constructed notions of how situations should pan out. There’s something so enticing, familiar and even comforting about these bananas.
What if, instead, we let go? We let go of the original plan or whatever banana we were clinging to so tightly. By doing so, we free ourselves from the trap. We can then accept the reality of the situation and decide, now what?