Caught by your own hand.

There is nothing worse than desire,

There is nothing more dangerous than being discontent.

There is nothing more disconcerting than suffering from greed. 

When a person knows they have enough they will always have enough.

I do love watching those programmes where people turn up with something they have had in their home for years and years but never thought it was of any value. They say that it was given to them by a relative and since then it has been in a cupboard, "Is it of any value they wonder?"

It is wonderful to watch when they are told that the item is of some real value. This is especially true when the person has something they would like to find some money for. Possibly like the lady, I watched last week who was hoping her vase was worth enough to enable to help her give something towards buying a violin for her granddaughter. Not only was she able to put something towards it she had enough to pay for the violin and some more to pay for lessons. She was in tears as the value went up and up.

I am not so happy when I hear of people who go around charity shops looking to see if they can find something they are sure is of value and the charity shop has not realised it. One such person appeared on a programme last week. he was sure that the plate he had purchased for five pounds was worth considerably more.

When it went to auction it was worth over £1000. What was he going to do with the profit? He was going to treat himself to something nice, and of course, keep some money to go and look for more bargains. 

I know many will think good on him it is all honest and above board and the charity got what they asked for. I just deep down would feel happier if he had shared it half to him and a half to the charity.  I would probably have kept my initial outlay and given all the profit to the charity to further their good work. But we all see this differently.

The words at the top are from an ancient Chinese philosophical work of Lao Tzu. It reminded me of the tale of the greedy monkey.

Once upon a time, there lived a mischievous monkey. One day, the monkey went out of the farm where he had lived and gone into the village.  There he was excited to see the markets, the houses and the people. He entered into some houses and found his favourite food there. He sneaked some in his hands and ran away.  

This he did day after day much to the annoyance of the people who lived in the village.

“This village is more fun than that farm. I will live here”, the monkey thought to himself. Days went by and the monkey’s mischief grew each day. The people of that village were in terror, but they didn’t know how to get rid of this monkey. 

One day, a juggler came to the village. The village people approached the juggler. “We want to get rid of that monkey. Could you help us do that”, they said? 

The juggler replied, “Friends do not worry. I will help you. Please get me some pots with very narrow necks”. The village people gave him the jars that he asked for.

The Juggler took those jars and put some peanuts into them. Then he placed those jars near the place where the monkey stayed. The monkey saw the jars and curious to know what was inside them, he put his hand inside the jar. He could feel the peanuts.

The monkey then put the other hand in another jar and grabbed a hand full of peanuts. Since he was holding the nuts in the hands and the necks of the jar were very narrow, the monkey couldn’t take his hands out. He was very greedy, so he didn’t want to drop the nuts.

The juggler and few other ran up to catch the monkey. The monkey couldn’t run faster than the men because his hands were caught in the jars. He was caught by them and was later sold to a zoo. 

Thus the mischievous monkey was trapped because of his greediness.

have a marvellous day.