Humans unending war with the monkey and chameleon

Most of us feel busy and occupied throughout the day. We are jumping from one task to another trying to finish our commitments or swimming through the ocean of emails, social media posts, and browser tabs, dodging the ball of personal and professional issues, or basketing the next shiny object from the market. The whole effort is to get the next Olympic medal of the day. If you notice, rarely do we find ourselves in a state of calm and rest.

Consider that we all have a monkey mind.

It may sound funny, but we humans have trouble dealing with this baby monkey in our tiny brains. This one likes to swing through dozens of trees, jumping from one branch to another, chasing that fruit of instant gratification. The problem is, when we entertain this mind, we end up being stressed, unfocused and short-termed. We lose the power of being present, think clearly, and seek long-term greed. Feeding these monkeys on daily basis means, training them to turn into apes in our minds like stress, anxiety, and depression.

Our life is all about promises, we make promises to ourselves and others. We say that we want one thing, but then we go for another. We want to start a business, but we continue to accept the monthly bribe. We know we want to lose weight, but end up overeating. We know we want to read, but we hook ourselves into our couch and watch endless web series. We know we want to spend quality time with our family, but we end up scrolling mindlessly on digital screens. We say we want to follow our passion, but we want to attend the next social obligation.

This constant struggle of contradicting thoughts is never-ending. So why do we find it difficult to fulfill our own promises?

Because we have a chameleon mind too.

The chameleon mind is nothing but resistance. Resistance is a child of the mother fear. We resist doing what we want to do only because our chameleon mind instructs us to be careful, don’t make mistakes, don’t trust, we will get hurt, we are too small, go slow or compromise. Suddenly, we see a change in our thoughts as the chameleon is successful to change its color to survive.

Do you know the chameleon have eyes in the back of their heads? This is what fear does, it makes us look at the past to protect us from hurt or blind us to see the future. This is because the chameleon mind hates uncertainties, change, risk, discomfort, and success.

The point is; the monkey mind and chameleon mind are here to stay. They are stuck with us as a physical mass in our brains. They live within us and are going to do their work of keeping us distracted and fearful. The only way to deal with them is to cajole and harness them because you cannot quite or ignore them. Observe your thoughts, check whether it is resisting or is unfocused about a certain task, befriend them and shut them up.