“The South Indian Monkey Trap is an age old method for catching troublesome monkeys looking to steal food from local villagers in parts of India. This simple but ingenious trap consists of a coconut that has been carefully hollowed out at one end and chained to a pole in the ground. Some sweet rice is then placed inside the coconut through the hollowed out opening, which is big enough for the monkey to place its hand in and grab a handful of rice, but too small for it to then remove its clinched fist with the sweet rice. Eventually some monkeys would come along, discover the rice, reach inside the coconut, greedily clutch as much of the rice as possible, thus making a fist in the process, and suddenly find themselves trapped.

Oddly enough, as you may have picked up, there is no actual physical barrier preventing a monkey from escaping the trap – they could just let go of the food and they would be free, but they dont.”¹

So now I ask you, what are you holding on to that you can let go of?

What beliefs and values have you held on to that have now become your own trap?

If you have beliefs and values that aren’t serving you, then perhaps it’s time to ask yourself why you’re still holding on to them.

Changing a belief or value will seem difficult at first because they are ingrained deep inside you. However, you do have the ability to do so. You might experience feelings of guilt or even fear just thinking about changing something that’s at the core of who you are. But if you feel that you’re being held back by your beliefs and values, then you owe it to yourself to at least consider changing them.

Look, you don’t have to be like the trapped monkey. Fortunately evolution hast been kind to humans and given us greater thinking ability than the monkey. So if you have beliefs and values that have trapped you then why not use your ability to think and reason and just let go?

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1 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values,’ Robert M. Pirsig