Being Stupid and Never Giving Up

The last couple of mornings, I have had some interesting reminders about life from nature. One is about being stupid and the other is about never giving up.

As I ran past a particular house, I heard a sound like something hitting a window. I looked around and saw a bird sitting on a tree branch not far from a second story window. As I watched, the bird flew at the window, bounced off and settled back on the branch. Now I have seen birds fly into a window before, but it usually takes bouncing off the window once and the bird flies off.

This bird would not give up. It just kept flying at the window, bouncing off and then sitting on the branch for a minute or two before doing the whole thing over again. I don’t know if it saw its own reflection, or what. When I went by the same house a couple of hours later, it was still at it. I would think it must have had a terrible headache by then!

I thought how many times we are like that bird. We just keep trying the same thing over and over no matter how much anyone in his right mind could see that it wasn’t working. Now I am not much for giving up, but I certainly don’t think we need to be stupid about things. If it ain’t working, change something! Einstein said that insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

The other incident came just a morning or two later. As I was walking, I heard a sound and looked over to the yard next to me. There was a cat and a squirrel. The cat was chasing the squirrel across the yard, and he caught him! The cat flipped the squirrel over and I thought that the squirrel might be in some real trouble.

The squirrel wasn’t that much smaller than the cat and he got away. They ran a few feet, and the cat caught the squirrel again, once again flipping him over. The whole scene played out with the squirrel getting away.

The squirrel made it to a tree and went up about four feet and then stopped. I don’t know if the squirrel knew that cats can jump, but he does now!

The cat jumped up and caught the squirrel and pulled him down out of the tree. They wrestled for a few seconds and the squirrel, once more, got away from the cat and this time he didn’t stop climbing that tree until he was about twenty feet up!

Had that squirrel, at any time, given up, he would have been a goner! Since he didn’t and he changed his tactics from simply running across the yard to climbing a tree, he got away. When one thing didn’t work, he tried another, and he was successful!

How many times do we try something, it doesn’t work, and we quit? We think that what we want to accomplish, what we want to do, won’t work and we just stop.

The bird kept doing the same thing when it was obvious it was not going to work. The most he got out of his efforts was a headache. The squirrel learned that one method was not being successful, so he changed his plan and succeeded.

Perhaps I can learn from these two lessons in nature. Doing the same thing over and over, even when it doesn’t work is foolish, it is bird brained! Having a goal, and changing tactics when things don;t work according to plan will save my bacon. What about you? Can you learn from these two?