Be The Walnut

Once upon a time a man appeared from nowhere. People to this day try to speculate where he came from, but no one really knows. He just appeared one day carrying a large jar with what looked to be filled with beans. He set his jar in front of me and a large group of people. It was kind of eerie that he didn’t say a word at first, but just stood there seemingly scanning the crowd of people while we stared at that seemingly magical jar. He asked the crowd of people if we wanted to be successful. He said, he had a beautiful secret and he would share it with us for free. He quickly, recanted a bit and said almost free. He said I only ask that as time goes on you share the story of the Golden Walnut in that it was his endeavor and lifelong dream to help others to be successful in everything they do in life. Drunk with the essence of euphoria from the hope of success, we all nodded our heads and with that he started to weave the story of the Golden Walnut into the essence of our lives – changing each one of us individually as he talked.  

He said, there are two types of people in this world. There are those that don’t realize the value of a hard day’s work. They want others to tell them what to do. They don’t want to try new things or venture out and challenge themselves. They are not leaders and some say they are followers. They are the first to criticize others and last to accept the responsibility for their actions. He said, these are what I will call the “Beans”. He said, notice there are a lot of Beans in the jar and he smiled. The crowd of people was memorized as he continued to talk. 

He said, now the Walnuts on the other hand as you can imagine are the opposite of the Beans. The Walnuts are those individuals and people in life that aspire to do great things. They see themselves as boundless without limits. They are positive, disciplined, on time, and attentive to things. They are the first to arrive and last to leave. He went on to say, they are full of energy, positive, and happy and when you are around them you start to glow with the essence of life. As I listened and watched all I could say was Wow! He stared at us and paused for a moment, looking into the crowd with a smile on his face and said he could see a number of Golden Walnuts out there. 

He said there was only one problem with his story and he asked if anyone knew what it was. No one knew and we shook our heads with no verbal response. He paused for a second and said, as I have been telling you the story about the Walnuts and Beans, my jar has been static sitting there without motion.  But everything in life is in motion!  He suddenly grabbed the jar and said, we need to put this jar in motion to simulate the motion of life. He started to shake the jar vigorously as he smiled and looked out into the crowd.

As we watched, a feeling of joy rushed over all of us as we saw something we never expected, we saw a single walnut rise from under the beans, all of the way to the top of the jar!  The man ever so slowly set the jar back down. With a half grin on his face and a level of confidence he said, in a short quip “be a Walnut and not a Bean.”