There once was a monkey that called himself “The Multi-Tasker.” He thought he was superior to all others. Everything was absolutely necessary, all the stress on him. Unfortunately, that came at the expense of his own feelings and the emotions of others.
One day The Multi-Tasker woke up in the hospital and didn’t know where he was. He looked up and there was a doctor. The monkey asked “where am I?”
The doctor replied, “You are in the psychiatric ward of the village veterinarian hospital, because you had a nervous breakdown and we’ve diagnosed you with severe depression. I am Dr. Owl.”
The monkey was astonished and embarrassed. “Dr. Owl, I demand to be released immediately.”
“Not yet,” Dr. Owl said in defiance of the great multi-tasking monkey. “I have three prescriptions for you, and then you can leave.”
Three days later the monkey went back to his limb business. His employees were not particularly happy to see him at first. But monkey wasn’t feeling like such a multitasker any more. He tried to implement the prescriptions from Dr. Owl, but it took a while. Little by little he noticed changes.
He recognized that the other monkeys were becoming more relaxed around him: appreciative and accepting of him in. He was beginning to learn how to be happy in his life. He went so far as to throw an all-you-can-eat Banana Fest with coconut milk on the house.
The whole village showed up including, Dr. Owl. He was ecstatic and screamed out “this is great!” to everyone’s amusement. At the end of the night the monkey went back to his tree and Dr. Owl stayed on the guest limb.
The monkey thanked Dr. Owl with genuine enthusiasm for his new life and told him how he despised his former monkey persona of being arrogant and dominating to others. He smiled.
He was a new monkey, and his weekly out-patient visits to the psychiatric ward with Dr. Owl were discontinued.
