Not Ours to Keep

There’s a story about a monkey who found a jar of cherries. He quickly stuck his hand in the jar and grabbed a handful of fruit. But when he tried to withdraw his fistful of cherries, his filled fist would no longer fit through the opening of the jar. 

The only way out of the trap was for the monkey to release the cherries and then remove his empty hand. But the poor monkey wanted the cherries so much and didn’t want to let go. His intense desire for the fruit had closed the monkey’s mind from considering other, workable and wiser options.

What a tricky situation it was! The monkey wanted the cherries so much that he couldn’t let go of the sweet fruit in his hand. Ironically, holding on to the cherries was the very thing that made it impossible for him to have them.

The monkey could have easily pulled his empty hand out of the jar. Now with both hands available, he could have turned the jar over and let the cherries pour out. But he kept his hand in the jar, holding fast to the cherries but never tasted them.

Another story is told of a small boy who had caught a bird and asked an old sage about it. “Wise man,” the boy said, “I want to know if this bird is mine.” The sage beckoned the boy to come closer. Then, he shared his wisdom with the young one.

“Open your hand,” the old sage softly whispered. The boy hesitated, fearing that the bird he was holding might fly away. Sensing the boy’s reluctance, the old man clasped the tense little hand. “My boy, if you really want to know, set it free.”

“Let it go,” the sage repeated. “If it comes back to you, you’ll know it’s really yours. If it doesn’t, then it never was.” The boy’s face lightened. Slowly he opened his hand.

Sometimes we are so obsessed with something that we even seek it by force. Maybe it’s our need for power, to be in control. We think that by our own initiative we can get whatever we want, and that there’s no better proof of power than conquest.

Indeed, it runs against human reason to let go of something we so much want to have. But sometimes our most valued acquisition is our torment. We constantly worry that we might lose a cherished possession, especially when it’s not certain whether what we have is truly ours.

The same is true in our human relationships. We can love so much and yet appear like we love not. A friend once related to me, in between heavy sighs and tears in his eyes, how his wife mistook his loving actions towards her. She had left him, without a trace; perhaps she got suffocated by his love.

With true love, what matters most is the happiness of the beloved. The kind of affection that seeks its own rewards will not pass for true love. It might, after all, be merely a sick fascination.

We can be addicted to people in the same way we can be addicted to things. And no addiction is healthy, for the very reason that it overrides our sense of self-control. When addiction afflicts a human relationship, there can only be losers; both the oppressed and the unwitting oppressor suffer. A loving hug, when overdone, can choke.

On the other hand, selfless love heals. We often feel material abundance when we share with others what little we have. Similarly, a practical antidote to feeling lonely and unloved is to go outside of ourselves to be friendly and loving to others.

In the end, the cliché is true that “there’s nothing in this life that’s ours to keep.” Earthly life is a passing phase in the human experience, and so is everything in it. Even our dearest possessions and relationships we must leave behind the moment we are called to move on.

“There’s nothing in life that’s ours to keep.” Not the things we toil so much to have. Not the people we love. We shall, therefore, be prepared and willing to lose or to give away anything, everything.