Meet Deidre and Dave.
Leonardo their Landlord was a groovy guy with a goatee beard, shades, designer jeans, a shoulder length ponytail and a charming twangy drawl. Leonardo was a dream landlord. He would frequently pop round in the cool of the evening with an award winning beverage just to see how his tenants were doing. And always just as Leonardo was leaving he would remind Deidre and Dave not to mess with the tree in the middle. That was His job. His responsibility. They could and should eat as much of all the other fruit, but please ignore the fruit of the tree in the middle.
This didn’t bother Deidre and Dave. What with mangoes, avocados, lychees, bananas, cumquats and macadamia nuts what more could they want?
Then one sunny day when Dave had finished pruning the Pink Lady apple tree and Deidre had harvested 16 coconuts, they happened to glance at the tree in the middle. …(You know where this is going right?) And despite having more than enough scrumptious tucker the one thing they wanted more than anything else was the fruit of the tree in the middle of the orchard.
And so the inevitable happened. A lead to Q, lead to Leonardo being very cranky, which led to their lease being torn up and Deidre and Dave were now homeless, hungry and sorry. Sure it’s an old tale but it tells us a very important truth.
That no matter how much we have, the thing we want most of all is the one thing that we cannot and shouldn’t have. Look around. Rejoice in the bounty that you do have and don’t let envy bring you down.