First the tribesman finds an ant hill positioned so that it can be clearly seen from the edge of the oasis. Then using a spear, a hole is drilled into the ant hill (if it was drilled into the sand the sides would collapse). The next step is to expand the bottom of the hole by rotating the spear so that there is more room at the bottom than the shaft going down. Now a very elaborate performance takes place. A glass crystal catches the light easily and its shine is directed towards the vegetation of the oasis. The monkeys of course are watching and you know that the curious monkey loves shiny objects. The crystal is dropped into the hole and the Kalahari tribe spread out, keeping their distance from the ant hill.
You can guess what the monkeys do! Yes, that's right, they come forward and one plunges its arm down the hole and grabs the crystal. Its hand is now a fist big enough for the fist to fit into the bulb at the bottom of the shaft, but too big for the shaft. The Kalahari tribe comes forward – the other monkeys scamper, but the one with the crystal, it just won't let go of the crystal. That's all it has to do to save its life – let go.
The rest of the story is not important but I'll tell you anyway. The monkey is tied to a post in the sun and near it is placed a block of salt. In a few hours the monkey is literally “dying of thirst”, having licked the salt. With the Kalahari tribe in position, the monkey is released. Of course it throws caution to the wind as it makes a direct path to the water, with the tribe following .... and that's how they find the water in the desert oasis.
The story of the monkey leads us to question how many old habits we have that we need to let go. Most of these old habits were probably very useful to us at some time in the past. But the time when they were of most use has gone. The moral of the story about the monkey is not that monkeys shouldn't eat peanuts, or play with crystals, or be curious. It's that there are circumstances where monkeys must let go. So too with many of our old habits, our old ways of doing things, our old opinions, our old attitudes. All of these things may have served us very well in their time. But there comes a time to let go.
Let's put letting go into some sort of context. As I have explained I have a military background and have a large number of mates who also served for long periods in the Australian Army. I have a friend from my Duntroon days who still has all his uniforms in his wardrobe at home. There are dress uniforms, summer and winter, ceremonial uniforms, mess kits for summer and winter and several pairs of jungle greens. There is no possible need for him to keep these things as he has now put on weight and none of the clothes would fit him. So, even if he wanted to wear his mess dress to a formal dining night for veterans, he would be unable to do so and would have to be excused for wearing a dinner jacket. There are also other military items in his house like battalion plaques, regimental crests and a fading black and white photograph of his comrades standing next to the steel tracks of a huge Centurion tank in Vietnam.
This friend of mine hasn't let go his army days yet. Who knows? Maybe he is even grieving in a quiet sort of way for the excitement, the challenge and the mateship of it all. But for him to really make it in civilian life, to fully make the transition from warrior to suburbanite, he has to, one day soon, let go.
There is nothing wrong with keeping mementos of our past. What is wrong is when we cling to these things in order to define our position in the world today.
The challenge of letting go faces us in many other routine situations of life. Let me explain just a few more of these.
Letting go of the phases of life. We go through various phases in our lives, the young teenager, the young trainee training for a trade or the youthful student at University, the new graduate entering a career, parenthood of young children, the prestigious position representing a company overseas and so on. Each of these phases will run its course and we must face the time when they each draw to a close. The challenge, as each phase closes, is to let it go and look forward to the next challenge before us. In motivation terms, to reset our goals. There is no reason why the challenges should not get better and better throughout our entire lives. We must surrender each phase before we can really get on with the next.
Letting go our children. When our children are first born we have a tendency to regard them as “ours”, as though they are our belongings, our property, our chattels. This is not necessarily a bad thing at the start – it is in fact true that for the first few months of a baby's life, it is incapable of distinguishing itself as being separate from its mother. However, if this were to continue for too long it would start to inhibit the progress and development of the child and, indeed, of the parent. How many times have you heard the story of the mother or father who takes their child to school on the first day and then comes home to spend the rest of the day in tears? The difficulty is to let go. Later in the children's years come all the little letting go moments when, for example, you realise that they would rather go to their friend's house on Saturday afternoon than come to the beach with you, as they used to love doing when they were little children. And then there is the picture of the strong truck driver or coal miner who breaks down and gives a blubbering speech on his daughter's wedding day. Embarrassing for him, but it happens. Letting go is not always easy.
Letting go relationships such as a marriage that has irretrievably broken down.
Letting go after the death of a spouse, life partner, friend or close relative.
Letting go our status. Circumstances can arise where we have to let go status. This can happen to a busy corporate manager when he/she retires. It is no use to talk on endlessly in retirement about “What I did when I was the manager of the Bloggs Marketing Company.” You may have faced a business failure in your life. You may have gone from a person employing many workers and commanding great resources to a bankrupt depending on the favours of friends for a rather menial job. It is no use at all to ever engage your new workmates in conversations about, “When I was a hotshot in this big company that I owned I ... ” If you ever want to rebuild the financial position you once had you must let go of the previous status first. Don't release your self esteem, but let go of the old status. Let go, and if it's status you want, you will clear the way to clamber back up the status ladder again. But for starters, let go, let go, let go.
Letting go resentment.
Letting go envy or jealousy.
Letting go memorabilia. As I write these words I look across the room to see a shelf of old thirty three and a third rpm vinyl albums with all the hits of years gone by. I haven't played any of them for ages now! On the shelf above sits my nice little CD player next to the rack of new CDs which contain all the variety, and more, of my old record collection. Maybe I have some collectors items but maybe not! But I must let go of those old records soon. How many of us have wardrobes full of old clothing which is all the wrong colours, out of fashion and hardly fits any more? How many of us do this with other items that we needed in the past?
Letting go a home. Situations arise in life where we may have to move from a home we have loved dearly. This may arise in all sorts of ways such as in a career move for a business executive from one city to another. The business executive, the spouse, the children all have to move and they may all know that the move they are making is for the better, but they may all experience the loss of that place, the sense of being at ease in a house you have lived in for a long time. There is a need to be able to let go that home before the next phase of life produces its benefits. An elderly person who decides to move to a smaller unit may, similarly, experience grief over the move. The person knows the move is for the better but can't help being nostalgic about the old home; the place where the children were small and grew up, the place where the grandchildren came, where neighbours were familiar and the place where love was shared. It is sad to leave such a place. But circumstances arise where it is the best thing to do. And so the need arises – the need to let go.
Letting go a pet. A child may have to let go a pet when the pet gets older and dies. An elderly person may have to let go a pet when the person moves into a different form of housing.
Letting go on life itself. In some ways life is a process of letting go all the phases until we reach the stage where we can let go on life itself. How many times has it been said that we bring nothing into this