The following is an actual dream Dr. Grayson had. It spurred some interesting thoughts. Maybe it was too much sugar before bed, or watching the Matrix series in the days before the dream. It was weird, and worth sharing.
We were visited by a colonizing space ship from another galaxy. The somewhat-human-shaped beings said they wanted to live on Earth with us, and fit in to our culture. Having never been visited by aliens, Earth decided to be hospitable and allow them to share the planet. So, these Green Beings, or Green Beans as they came to be called, settled in all over the world. They looked like well- flushed-out stick figures, kind of like this picture I’ve drawn for you.
What made everyone on Earth so hospitable was the Green Beans’ very nature. They were energetic, happy, helpful, intelligent, and nice. Having one of them over for dinner was all the rage! The Green Beans took the worst housing wherever they were, but they were fine with it. In fact, regardless of how horrid the conditions were, they acted like they had just won the lottery and a mansion when they saw their digs. The Green Beans didn’t have any particular skills to start off with, so they took the worst jobs out there.
You could see Green Beans mucking out pit toilets, slaughtering animals, putting widgets together, doing after-liposuction cleanup, doing the 2 a.m. cleanup at a xxx movie theater, and doing data entry. The funny thing was, they loved their jobs no matter what they were. In fact, it was popcorn-eating entertainment just watching them do their work! There was even a 30-minute television show that basically included video of the Green Beans doing their horrible jobs. One of the best episodes included a segment with a Green Bean being told that his/her/its job was to clean out a twelve-foot-deep pit toilet with a hose and shovel. It was like a child being shown a Christmas tree full of presents. The pure glee, honest enthusiasm, and pleasure at hearing of the task struck the rest of the world as dumb. The Green Being took to the task so wholeheartedly and vigorously that you’d think there was nothing else in the world the fellow would rather be doing.
The inability to fathom the Green Beans’ attitude and work ethic in even the worst situations tortured the modern soul. Indeed, another reality-based television show spawned with the idea of trying to stump the Green Beans. The things they had Green Beings do put the show Fear Factor to shame. Eventually, the show was cancelled, because it became boring to watch a foregone conclusion – they would love the job, and do it with every ounce of energy they had.
I could regale you with more stories of the Green Beans, or tell you what happened in the end of my dream, but we don’t have all day. Maybe I’ll write a screen play for the movies sometime. Instead, I want to leave you with this . . . all of us have the potential to be like the Green Beans. Maybe you’ve had a bad day, or a bad week, or even a relentless and disappointing career so far. Despite these things, we have the ability to choose our attitude . . . our outlook . . . and our actions. We don’t have to be happy about what happened, but we can choose to be happy anyway – even chipper, helpful, and nice. We can’t change what happened. What we can do is play the one string we have – our attitude. It isn’t just the Green Beans that have that power. In the end, humanity in my dream was so tortured because the Green Beings so visibly and constantly reminded them of that power and ability that we all have and seldom use.