Be the goat in a tree (really)

First, this post is for my sister, not because she is actually a goat, but because she told me about goats in a tree and I think she’s done a pretty good job learning to be the goat in a tree. Now, onto the post, which will hopefully explain why I just called my sister a goat.

Yes, those are actual goats in a tree. No, this image hasn’t been retouched in Photoshop. Apparently goats in Morocco have the ability to climb up an down Argan trees in order to get food, which is a bit scarce in the desert country.  Now, as amazing as that is, I think it raises some interesting observations.

One, we need to learn how to navigate the difficult situations in our lives.  Surely, if goats can figure out how to climb trees in order to get the only food they can find, then we should be able to learn how to adapt our plans when we encounter difficulties. The expression “think outside the box” has most definitely been overused, but lots of times we feel stuck in bad situations because we can only think of the obvious solutions.  Picture it: a bunch of goats hanging out under a tree starving because they can’t find anything to eat because the only place they’ve ever found food was, well, where they’d always looked for it.  Finally a brave goat raises a hoof and boldly says to the goat group that they could always eat if they just climbed the tree they were dying under. Oh, the mocking bleats he must have heard from the other goats!  I bet the mocking grew louder at his first failed attempts to climb the tree, too, but at some point the mocking turned to cheering when they saw him in a tree eating!  The best solutions often come in the places we haven’t even looked yet.  Adapt your plans.  Let the stretching make you even more flexible, and see if you can find that unexpected fruit that you crave in an unexplored place.

Two, when we are willing to explore the unexplored, very often we’ll find that it yields amazing fruit.  As hard as this is to believe, the goats eat from the tree and as a result their droppings contain the kernels of the seeds which are then pressed by locals for oil.  The oil has many uses, but two of them are culinary and cosmetic.  So, the goats think outside the box, climb a tree, eat the fruit, poop out some seeds, and then people use the oil from those seeds for cooking and for smearing on their faces to look more beautiful.  Oh, and they also get richer, because a quarter-liter bottle of the oil sells for anywhere from $15-50.

The bottom line is obvious: we need to become the goat in a tree.  We need to stop looking at hopeless situations and start looking at situations for hope.  Like the boy who shoveled like crazy through a huge pile of horse manure because he knew that a pile that big had to lead to a horse, we need to plow our way through bad times knowing that the solution could be in the next place we look, or person we meet, or prayer we pray.

When we do that, we’ll often find others that think we’re crazy.  I mean, goats in a tree??  But if we’ll persevere, we’ll soon find that, not only are we eating, but we’re also finding fuel to help others around us.

So, take a cue from some crazy Moroccan goats, and go climb a tree.  You may be surprised at what you find in it.

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