Their was once a young girl named Briar Rose that had two older sisters, they were from a well to do family, and the two older daughters were selfish, lazy, entitled, and thought the world revolved around them. They often left Briar Rose to do all the chores, took the best clothes and leaving Briar with the leftovers they often insisted that Briar took on the tasks they thought were above them. One day a letter came, it was a request by their aunt Babba that she would like one of the girls to come visit and bring her some tea and bread. The two sisters frowned and couldn’t be bothered but Briar being actually curious volunteered. The two sisters laughed and sneered at Briar, feeling rather pleased with the fact that they got out of what they would consider a demeaning task.
When Briar got to the old ladies house she offered her the modest gift, the old lady asked that she fluff her pillow and read to her a bit, Briar Rose did this without complaint, the old lady then asked her to come with her down to the basement. Briar Rose went with her, she walked into a vast world of abundance where their were priceless jewels and a crown of gold. “I have decided you will inherit my kingdom” says the the Aunt. She gives Briar Rose some of the beautiful gold and silver and a ball gown befitting a queen and sends her home.
The two sisters seeing this were blind with jealousy, and demanded that they take some bread and tea to the Aunts house now. Well they got to the aunts house threw the bread and tea on the counter and said we are here now, where is our reward. The aunt asked the girls to fluff her pillow and read her a story. The older sister rolled her eyes and fluffed her pillow and the other one told a lame story about the ball she went to and how successful her dancing was. They both said now we’ve done this thing given you some of our time and where is our reward.
The aunt gets up and takes them to the basement where their is a pile of horse manure. The aunt says, if you are willing to clean up this horse manure, I’ll make sure you are rewarded a part of my kingdom as well. The girls were indignant, cursed the aunt out and left. As they went home they, sad to say, they were suddenly not able to speak without horse manure coming out of their mouths, and every dress they owned no matter how pretty,was suddenly ugly no matter what they did.
You learn to make choices when you have a mindfulness practice, you do the right thing and you do it because it’s a reward in and of itself, as you do it without complaint you become more curious, more caring, more accepting and loving of others. You’re like Briar Rose you don’t expect anything, success can happen but it’s indirect, she’s filled with wonder as she sets her eyes on the treasure she didn’t expect, being more mindful is the reward in and of itself.
If you have the attitude of I saw someone else do mindfulness and they are being more successful, I’m going to try it because it worked for someone else and I want that they have, it’s not that you can’t get to the treasure, but you are going to have a lot of manure, to clean up. If you aren’t willing to clean up the shit you may find that your bitterness and discontent will not go away, and this is sad because in this case, even if you are conventionally successful, your still not going to escape the shit, and you’ll just be more aware of it.