Imagine a boy with a backpack and as he is walking along he picks up a rock.  On the rock is written “you’re stupid”.  He puts the rock in his backpack.  He then picks up another rock that has “no one likes you” written on it and puts it in his backpack.  He keeps finding rocks that say negative things.   The rocks reflect the negative thoughts he thinks and so he begins collecting them, thinking to own them.  The backpack is getting quite full.  He becomes very tired and miserable carrying the backpack.  His shoulders are slumped and his head is down.  He sees more and more rocks and is compelled to pick them up and put them into his backpack.  Eventually, the weight is too great for him and he painfully lies down on the ground and tells himself he can’t go on.

As he lies on the rough ground feeling despair he is startled when a hand, holding a piece of fruit, appears in front of his eyes.  Bewildered, the boy accepts the offered fruit, eats it and then a strange thought occurs to him.  He believes that he may be able to stand up.  He gets onto his wobbly legs and the minute he stands he hears a thud!  The boy turns around and sees that one of the rocks dropped out of the bottom of his backpack.  The backpack feels a little lighter.  This makes the boy hopeful.  Another thud and he notices another rock has fallen.  He’s beginning to think that he can continue his walk as the backpack becomes even lighter yet.  Each positive thought he thinks has caused one of the negative rock thoughts to fall out.  Now the boy continues to walk and is thinking about the positive things he is experiencing.  He’s even beginning to feel a little bit happy!  Thud, thud, thud.

Every now and then he gets drawn to pick up another negative rock thought.  Oops.  However, the rocks are dropping out of the pack more quickly than the rocks he’s putting back in the pack.  As the pack lightens, he begins to stand straighter, with his head up instead of bowed down, and he sees that there are trees above him.  The branches are filled with fruit.  He hadn’t seen this before.  He reaches up to pick a fruit and eats it.  It tastes good…like the fruit that was offered him when he thought he was never going to be able to walk again.  The more fruit he eats, the more positive thoughts he has like, “I’m so thankful to be able to have fruit” and “life is really good” and as he thinks these things the sounds of thudding increase until he discovers that all of the rocks have fallen out and the pack is empty.

Now he is so captivated by the fruit and he is picking so much of it that he locates a bin to put it in.  He can’t carry all the good fruit he’s picked so he looks for someone to share it with.  He sees a boy with a heavy backpack sitting on the side of the road looking completely exhausted.