Where Is Your Skinny Cow?

There’s a story that the Kabbalists’ teach about staying small. What they mean by staying small is all of those places where we settle, where we ignore red flags and sort of just function at a mediocre level because it would actually take effort (and a whole lot of certainty) to make a change.

This is pretty much what I mean by “Comfortable Hell.” You all know what that is, I really don’t need to elaborate.

Anyway, the story about staying small is called “The Skinny Cow.” I know I’m probably going to mess up some of the story, so no judgment from anyone that knows exactly how it flows. I promise the understanding behind it will still be the same.

It goes something like this:

A man and his family live a very meager existence in a small village. Their only means of income is a very skinny cow that provides just enough milk for them to sell every week in the town square. The money buys the man and his family enough food to survive and that’s it, nothing more.

Every week is exactly the same until one day a great sage and his students visit the village and stop by the man’s home, in hopes of finding dinner.

Without any hesitation, the man allows the sage and his students to come in to eat, as this is a great honor. The family hurries to prepare all of the food they have in the house and they graciously serve their guests.

An hour later, every ounce of food is gone and so are their guests. The family sits and stares at each other, all thinking the same thing… now what do we do?

They quickly gather up any items they have around their home to sell, which is barely anything. They head to the square and sell these items to buy enough food to survive the next few days.

Tomorrow arrives and to their surprise, the sage and his students are at the door again, asking for dinner. The family welcomes them in and quickly prepares all of the food they have. There is no way they would ever turn away such righteous souls.

They had to have faith and stay certain that they would somehow, some way be taken care of, not only because of their obvious generosity but also due to their going outside of their comfort zone and giving without a second thought.

Again, tomorrow comes and there’s a knock at the door. It’s the sage and his students and they are hungry. In a hurry, the man runs to get his skinny cow and heads to the village to sell it. It’s all he had, but he needed to feed his very righteous guests.

He sells the cow, uses all the money to buy food, and heads home so he and his family can, once again, serve their guests. An hour later, the family sits alone, this time, without any food or any possibility of buying any in the future.

Their only source of income was gone. The man finally loses it and heads out the door and runs into the woods. Once in the woods, he starts screaming “what more can I do? I trusted and gave without any thought of myself, and now what?”

Just then, he noticed a map on the floor of the forest. It was a treasure map! Without delay, he followed the directions to the “X” and to his absolute surprise, there was a chest full of millions!

Flash forward 10 years, the man and his family were riding on a grand carriage through the village and spotted the great sage they once served. The sage looked up at the man and smiled.

The learning behind this wonderful story is all about those things that we hold onto so tightly, but they keep us living in such a mediocre state. It’s almost as if we’re not even aware of it.

It’s kinda like someone asking you if you’re tired. You’re like “you know, I’m not even sure anymore because this is just how I feel every day. What does being energetic and happy even feel like, anyway?” Who the hell knows, we’re all settling for comfortable hell.

Nonetheless, the man in this story got rid of the only thing that was holding him back from the abundance that was waiting for him all along, he just had to trust that there WAS indeed more out there.

For so long he was clinging to merely survival, he wasn’t thriving, but didn’t even realize how bad it was, how little he settled for. The sage provided an opportunity. The man could have turned him away and remained “safe” in his little home, scraping to get by, living every day in exactly the same way, but he didn’t.

He took that opportunity and changed his entire life. It was the hardest thing he ever did, but wouldn’t the absolute day-to-day agony of staying small be WAY harder? We don’t even know we’re in hell until we finally escape it.

I assure you the opportunities are always there and they will continue to be there, it’s up to you to finally do something different when they arrive. It’s like we have to act in a way where we barely recognize ourselves. It only hurts for a minute (rather than a lifetime) and the other side is truly heaven.

So where is your skinny cow?