Flying Lessons

A couple of weeks ago, I was cleaning hanging baskets and I pulled one down and a bird flew out, which of course startled me. I looked in the basket and there was a nest with 3 little eggs in it. We stopped watering that basket and hoped that the eggs would hatch. Last week, I pulled the basket down and the eggs had hatched, which was kind of exciting because usually the nest is abandoned. On Tuesday, the mother bird was calling her babies and I was watching her flit around. On Wednesday, there was only one baby left in the nest. There were three adult birds calling the little bird. On Thursday morning the birds were gone, the hanging basket sold, and I got to watch the adult birds teaching the babies how to fly.

So, what did I learn from this experience...

We should believe the "experts" around us. The mother bird knew that her babies were ready to fly. She believed in them and she coaxed them into believing in themselves. When people who know what they're talking about (ie. "experts") tell us we can do something, achieve something, be something, etc, we should believe them. We should rely on their faith in us, until we have the same faith in ourselves.

We should take risks. One of the little birds just bailed out of the basket and fell for half a second and then started flapping its wings and was flying. That little bird believed its mother and took the risk. When we know we want to be, do, accomplish, something, we have to take risks. Sometimes those risks are huge, like bailing out of the nest, and other times the risks are much smaller, but in order to get where we want to be, we have to take some risks.

We should strive. Yesterday, at the nursery, the adult birds spent the day teaching the babies how to fly. They spent hours flying short and then longer distances and then calling the babies to follow them. They pushed themselves and by the end of the day, they were flying.

Those are just some of my thoughts. It was really neat to watch this happen and to have the opportunity to really think about how this might apply to life.