If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come

“If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come”.

That’s an old Chinese proverb.

This is not a non-sequitor. It all ties together with the pics (Below). Bear with me, I’ll get there.

It was a bit over ten years ago, when I attended a sort of “class” which met once per week for six months. This class was taught by a lady from Okinawa who had a Master’s Degree in psychology. It was designed to be sort of midway between “Business” and “Psychology”, so there were many lessons that seemed to draw from many facets of life. I can still picture her face, but sadly I’ve forgotten her name.

We had one class that was particularly memorable. Each class was generally 90 minutes long and in this session, we spent the first hour discussing jobs; occupations and more importantly what we wanted from them.

She had a large white board and asked for one-word suggestions from the group of 16 or so people in attendance, seated around a large conference table. She wanted job attributes and when some one called one out, she wrote in on the board.

In no time, we had a few dozen responses. The responses were attributes like “being famous”, “well paid”, “helping others”, “work outdoors/ indoors”, “variety”, “exciting”, “fulfilling”, “happiness”, and physical/ mental aspects.

Once the board was filled up she gave us a break and we filtered out of the room.

I hung back and I saw her writing stuff on slips of paper.

Okay…

At the appointed time, we all returned and discovered that she had laid out a fishbowl with slips of paper in it.

She then gave us each $1000 in monopoly money- 10’s , 20’s, 50’s, and 100’s.

“Now we will have an auction.” She announced. “I will draw one attribute at a time out of the fishbowl and you all will bid on it. What you’re willing to pay will indicate how important that attribute is to you.”

She drew one, then the second, then a third. The bidding was spirited and I’ll admit that I was a bit surprised at what people valued. Many people “bought” three or four “items”. The lesson turned into a sort of bazaar, with people taking the idea to it’s most logical conclusion- an auction where many people were “fighting” over the same thing.

I held back. My needs were a bit more basic than “wealth”, or “fame”. After all, I had already tried and failed at being famous, I’d been well paid on many past positions, and “exciting” was putting it mildly when I think back about being strapped to the top of a van on a racetrack doing around 60mph with a truck chasing us so we could photograph it at speed, I didn’t think I need any more of that sort of “excitement”.

I bided my time. Uncharacteristically, I was patient. Finally, when most of the attendees were out of money and were already clutching the pieces of paper that represented what was important to them, “Happiness” came up for grabs. I started bidding on that, because that was all I was waiting for…nothing else mattered to me. It turned out that someone else had been hanging back as well, with the same idea.

The bids started at $100, and quickly progressed to $500 with no sign of stopping. In a fit of pique, I just went “all in” to see what the other guy would do, and it turned out that he was trying to hold onto a bit of his money for something else as well, so I won…”Happiness.”

That was a valuable lesson, because it distilled what was really my bottom line; showing me what was really important to me.

And then, the next day I went to a Chinese restaurant and “If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will visit” was the fortune I found in my fortune cookie. I took this as a reminder of what I’d learned…a coda if you will.

…Now if I could just find a green bough, I could use a little of that birdsong right about now…