Shifting the Monkey

After running Wednesday night, I grabbed a book that I had on my summer reading list, Shifting the Monkey, by Todd Whitaker.  I had read one of his previous books for a grad class, and my principal actually loaned me his copy in the spring.  But I was finally able to get around to reading it.

And read it I did.  In about an hour I had it all done.  Short and to the point.  I liked it.

The main point of the book is to not allow others to shift their burdens or responsibilities (their monkeys) to you.

This happens to all of us.

If a student forgets an assignment and text me about it, I've he's now shifted his monkey on to me, for I have to take time and tell him what it was again.  (This is what is great about having an online syllabus that maps out your assignments or having a class blog).  I can shift this monkey right back to the student by texting him, "it's up on the class blog."

Sometimes, as a parent, I'll assign a task to my kids, yet I know they'll fail miserably.  Instead of letting them do it and learn from it, I let them shift the monkey right back to me by walking in halfway through and saying "Oh, I'll just do it."  In fact, I just did this when I did the dishes for KoKo!  Ha ha.

This happens too when we give in to gossip.  If I'm in the staff lounge and someone comes up fired up about an issue (an issue, mind you, that I probably can't do anything about), and they vent to me about how someone else isn't doing something for them or how someone else isn't fixing their problem, then their monkey has been shifted to me.  After all, what are the odds that I can do something about the problems?  Likely none.  So I've just accepted their monkey and let it bring me down.

The book didn't make me so much aware of the monkeys other people shift on over to me; instead, they've made me cognizant about the monkeys I shrug off to others.