What a Monkey Experiment Taught Me About Being Thankful

I was surprised by the results of this interesting and funny experiment on the roots of discontentment and envy.

A monkey throws away food that made it happy when it sees another monkey get better food, even though they were both doing the same amount of work. The food for the monkey on the left remained the same. It made him happy before. The animal was the same and the reward was the same. The only thing that changed was his expectations. Seeing someone get more raised them. After that, his pleasure was replaced by rage.

The expectations that someone has are internal things. Being internal,  they should be under the control
of one's mental processes. Learning some self control, celebrating the success of friends, being content with what you have are also internal conditions. The internal landscape we posses does not have to be tossed about by the chaos of emotional torments. It can be cultivated and ordered to bring about peace in our inner world.

True peace doesn't come from getting what the other guy has, because there will always be somebody that has more than you. True peace comes from being thankful for what we do have and learning to be content with what we have received.