Long ago on the island of Koshima, the village children started feeding the monkeys sweet potatoes by leaving the potatoes in the sand. The monkeys liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they did not like the sand.
On this particular day a one-year-old monkey called Imo and her monkey friends were playing on the beach together. Imo’s mother had taught Imo about how to wash potatoes. Imo taught all her friends how to wash the sand off the potatoes. Now, the monkeys REALLY enjoyed eating the delicious sweet potatoes.
As the morning sun was rising, Imo noticed from her tree high in the mountains that all the young monkeys on the entire island were busy washing the sandy sweet potatoes. She was excited and surprised.
After the 100th monkey washed his potato, a miracle happened
As I was walking the beach on the mainland, Takasakyama, which is across the ocean from Koshima Island, I noticed something I had never seen before. I even sat on a rock under a tree to watch the spectacle before me. Small groups of monkeys were washing sweet potatoes all up and down the beach. After the potatoes were washed, their joyous eating and conversations were quite entertaining.
And I wondered, if we were able to get 100 hundred people and children helping others around the world every day, what would the world look like?