The story of the five monkeys

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What’s on the agenda:

• A Verse

• A Lesson

• A Puzzle

A verse:

Life is hard. Bad things happen. We are dealt cards that suck.

But something that remains true is that we are loved, cared for, and blessed even on our worst days, when things aren’t going our way, and when the world feels heavy.

God’s love is chasing us and He is leading us to a place where we will seek it, see it, and understand it the most deeply.

Action Step:

If you’re in a hard place or struggle. I’d encourage you to spend 10 minutes writing out all the blessings and gifts you have in this life.

We tend to focus on the current hurt or pain, but it’s a great practice to help remind us that life is good and that we are blessed and loved.

A lesson: The Story of the 5 monkeys

Maybe you’ve heard it, but I want to tell you the story of the five monkeys experiment.

Five monkeys were put into a cage. At the center of the cage was a ladder that led to bananas at the top. When the monkeys saw the bananas, they immediately climbed up the ladder to reach the bananas, but when they got there, they were sprayed with cold water.

The monkeys ran back down the ladder.

The monkeys tried a few more times and got sprayed with water every time.

Eventually… the monkeys stopped trying to get the bananas.

After the monkeys stopped trying to get the bananas, the researchers started to replace the monkeys in the cage one by one, and when they did this, the monkeys in the cage kept the new monkey from going after the banana.

This pattern continued until all five of the original monkeys had been replaced.

And, even though none of the new monkeys had ever been sprayed, none of them would go after the bananas.

The Takeaway

I actually don’t know if this is a real experiment or a fable, but this story illustrates the fact that we tend to do things the way we’re told they’ve always been done, without questioning or revisiting the reason behind it.

If you asked the monkeys why they don’t try and eat the bananas (and if they could talk) they might say something like “I don’t know, it’s just what we’ve always done”.

The Action Step

I might write an letter on this one day, but the lesson I’m trying to learn and teach myself regarding this story is to “pull the thread”.

If there is something you want, a problem you need to solve, or growth that seems evasive, pull the thread - start asking questions, go down the rabbit hole, leave nothing to assumption, seek to understand the why behind everything.

Ask five whys, and you’ll likely uncover an inherited, cultural, or learned belief that is keeping you from breaking through a plateau you’re experiencing.

A Puzzle:

A rebus is a puzzle that uses pictures, symbols, and/or letters to represent words or parts of words. The challenge of the puzzle is to decipher the hidden meaning behind the symbols and solve the puzzle.

Here’s this week’s puzzle:

The answer will be given in next week’s letter.

The answer to last week’s puzzle was “Top Secret”.

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