Once upon a time, there lived a young man who was a strong believer in metaphysics. We will call him Tom. Tom constantly seeks out astrologers, soothsayers and the like, by the five-foot-ways, in temples and in the most inconceivable places in order to seek spiritual advice on virtually every aspect of his life.

One day, Tom went to see a famous Zen hermit who was residing in a limestone cave who was known for fortune telling and his enlighten philosophies. Arriving at the cave where the old wise man was residing, Tom saw the old man sitting cross-legged on the floor and stroking his silvery beard. Looking at Tom, the wise old man asked Tom what he wanted to know.




“Master, I want to know what is wrong with me. Why is it that I am always up against all the odds? Why am I not doing any better?”, replied Tom.

The wise old man looked hard at Tom for a couple of minutes, stood up and invited him to see his pet, a donkey. He led Tom to a nearby field behind the cave and on reaching there Tom could hear the wailing and moaning of a rather over-fed donkey.

“What’s wrong with the donkey”, Tom asked.

“nothing”, replied the wise old man. “He is just lazy. You see, he is sitting on a nail and the nail is hurting him. Unfortunately it is not hurting him enough to make him want to get off. You asked me what is wrong with you. Excuse me for being direct, could it be that you are like my donkey here, wailing and moaning but refusing to move? If you want to improve your situation you must get off that nail.”

Well, some people are like that. They constantly complain and refuse to take responsibility of doing something about their problems. They keep complaining about the nail but keeps sitting on what hurts them. Are you sitting on one now? Instead of continuing to moan and groan and feeding yourself with your well reasoned excuses about why you cannot, should not or will not, start thinking about how you can and start doing something about it.

There are a lot of people who don’t know the nail is hurting them. Some do but don’t bother to change. If you want to change for the better to become successful, to be well, you must first decide that you indeed want to make the first move. When you made the decision, you are ready to take control of your life. You can begin taking some positive actions which can give you the type of life circumstances you want to be in.

Of course, there are some situations we can’t really get rid off. They are bound to come. This is because of our past uninformed decisions. However, we do have a choice how we are going to meet whatever that comes into our life, and also decide how we want to positively change all that into the future we want. We still and will always have a choice. We need to make a firm decision we are going to take positive and informed actions to change our life for good.

This means you have to start disciplining your self to control of your life. Don’t let your negative life circumstances control you. If you feel you cannot change it, you can talk to people who have done it before. There are literally millions of self improvement books out there in the market too. I am sure, you can find one that suit your needs. See… it’s all in your hand. You can change your life. Don’t be like the donkey.