Don’t be a baboon!!
In May 2005, Dave Chappelle, walked away from his hit TV show and $ 50 Million, boarded a plane and flew away to South Africa. After two successful seasons of The Chappelle show, record breaking DVD sales, Dave felt like the show was ruining his life. Success came but the price he had to pay was way too much than he anticipated, being a man with his priorities straight he decided his peace of mind to be of utmost importance than any amount of money. Twelve years later after successfully reviving his stand up comedy career and getting paid around $ 60 Million for three comedy specials, he sat on an interview with Gayle King: Dave said,
“ I watched one of these nature shows one time and they were talking about how a bushman finds water when it’s scarce, and they do what is called a ‘salt trap.’ I didn’t know this, but apparently baboons love salt. So, they put a lump of salt in a hole and they wait for the baboon. The baboon comes, sticks his hand in the hole, grabs the salt, the salt makes his hand bigger, and he’s trapped and can’t get his hand out. Now, if he’s smart, all he does is let go of the salt. The baboon doesn’t want to let go of the salt. Then the bushman comes, grabs the baboon, throws him in a cage, and gives him all the salt he wants! And then the baboon gets thirsty, the bushman lets him out of the cage, the first place the baboon runs to is water, the bushman follows him, and they both drink to their fill. And in that analogy, I felt like the baboon, but I was smart enough to let go of the salt.”
Dave is not alone, most of us have found ourselves in situations where we are tempted to not let go no matter what; but the truth is we could escape if only we decided to be a little bit braver.
Most of us in corporate world are baboons, before getting these jobs we had bigger dreams, we wanted to change the world and be our own bosses but eventually we found ourselves trapped with the sweetness of our paychecks.
Here I am not talking to those whose dreams were to go up the corporate ladder, those who want to be CEOs of already established companies; am mostly talking to those of us who felt we need to create our own mark in the world, who wanted to create things, those of us whose excitement is to own the freaking ladder and not just climb.
It is sad that big dreams (Mine included) are now reduced to meager salaries we toil so hard for in a whole month. It sucks that instead of creating the jobs we all thought of creating and which, with a little courage and sacrifice we can, we are relaxing in a place we don’t belong to. We have trapped ourselves into this form of mediocrity which is an insult to God who bestowed all the greatness within us.
Hold on, you have reasons to be trapped in your job, you have so many reasons to why you are not pursuing the life you always envisioned. You have responsibilities, family to take care of and so on, I get it, I honestly get the predicament you are in right now.
Let’s all ask ourselves, what will happen if we take a leap? Are we not going to achieve greatness, are we not going to quit being mediocre? Isn’t it worth the sacrifice to see what will become of us if we can be just a little bit crazy and courageous to let go of the salt, step back and break free from our need of comfort and steady job. It will be hard for sure but the in the end I believe it will all be worth it.
Let us chase the dreams we hold close to our hearts, let us be the best version of ourselves TODAY.
This article was first published on my blog https://iamowino.blogspot.com/, April 29, 2017
