A LESSON FROM A PIGEON
A LESSON FROM A PIGEON
A few days ago it was raining. As I looked out my window, I saw pigeons sitting on the branches of the trees in my backyard. At different intervals they would flutter their wings. There was no rhythm or consistency in their movement, they just occasionally fluttered.
As I watched, it became apparent that they were fluttering to get the water off of their wings. Most everyone knows that birds secrete a waterproof oil onto their wings that repels water. If they did not flutter the water would flow off by itself.
Personifying a bit; I wondered if they were fluttering out of frustration or as getting rid of an irritant? I imagined them thinking, “I wish it would stop raining?” Now I am not a bird psychologist, but let’s say they were fluttering to get rid of the annoyance of water on their wings.
The question came to me, “how easy is it for us to just shrug-off minor infractions, irritants, and injustices? If the birds could reason, they would not be angry about the rain. You could say that the rain was a natural irritant.
To humans, what could be taken as natural irritants? And I do not mean rain.
I had a conversation with my 28 year-old son. He said, “the energy spent on dealing with little things can zap your zest for the more important things of significance.”
I must admit that I let drivers get to me at times on the road. I know I am not in the minority on this matter.
I devised a questions to ask when I get irritated on the road and other areas. “Is that person doing the thing that irritates me intentionally?”
Reasoning out matters like this, has brought me to be embarrassed of my own behavior. The average person does not get up in the morning planning on irritating people on the road that day.
I surmised, my being angry over little things is nothing short of pride — more precisely — “Fear of being taken advantage of.”
For humans, what is a “natural event” like the rain for the birds? I view traffic as a natural event. Like so many other factors that stem from us being in society. We are social animals that want to be around people, for security and social fulfillment, among other things.
We need people, it is only “natural” for that need to bring about conflicts, misunderstandings, and hurt feeling. Regardless of how tough you may think you are, we are fragile beings. Natural irritants are part of the social structure, they have the potential to touch our tender spots.
Like the birds fluttering, if we can learn to view little “things” that do not go in our favor, as a natural occurrence, we then could shrug them off allowing us to move on to bigger things. Those things of higher significance and importance that bring more joy to us and society. In effect, an exercise of perspective. Someone’s infraction on us today, could very well be our infraction onto some else tomorrow. All of it unintentional.
Let’s learn from the birds — Flutter away those little irritants.