Learn from the eagle
It is one unusually hot afternoon. I am dragging around my home in my nightgown, this way since I woke up, packing my suitcase for a long stay in Hong Kong. I know I have to write my next column early but I am not sure what I want to write about. Furthermore I am excited about my trip to Hong Kong. I am just one in a party of seven or is it nine?
We will be working there. Since I was hired again I have found that the source of my happiness is really work. I love getting up early in the morning, getting dressed and making it to the office by eight. I love the unexpected things that work brings, the little problems that need solutions, the big ones that only time will solve. I love them all. At the end of the day I go home to a house that I left messy and find still messy — I don’t have maids — but it doesn’t bother me. I have a new life now. I work. I make jewelry with my own hands. I strategize markets and I am so happy that I don’t mind that my home is a little messy. One day I will have time to fix it.
I open my e-mail. A friend has sent me the story of an eagle. It begins with: “Time decides whom you meet in life. Your heart decides whom you want in life but your behavior decides who will stay in your life.” Then it tells the story of the eagle who lives to be 70 years old. It tells you that for the first 40 years of its life the eagle has no worries. It flies, uses its long talons hunting for prey, which it eats using its sharp beak.
But at 40, age begins to tell. Its beak becomes bent and its talons dull so it can no longer hunt. Its feathers are so thick, making its wings stick to its chest. It cannot fly like it used to. Now the eagle has only two choices. One, it can or it can remake itself, reinvent itself, a process that will take 150 days or about five months to do.
To reinvent itself, the eagle must fly to the top of a very tall mountain and sit on its nest. There it will hit its beak against a rock until the old beak drops off. It waits for a new beak to grow. When the beak has grown back, the eagle plucks off its talons. Can you imagine the pain it must go through? The conviction it must have to do this? When its talons have grown back, now it must pluck out its feathers one by one and wait for them to grow back.
Finally, after five months, when its feathers have all grown back the eagle stretches its wings and takes its rebirth flight. It flies again, hunts for prey again, and lives another 30 years before finally dying.
This eagle story sort of reminds me of my life, my seven years of bad luck that made me almost sit quietly at home doing just the little that I could do before my life picked up again, started anew again and now here I am working again, flying to Hong Kong again, 100 percent alive again.
This presentation on the eagle is like a Powerpoint presentation, except you don’t change the slides and it doesn’t have animation. The next slide reads: “Why is change needed? Many times in order to survive we have to start a change process. We sometimes need to get rid of old memories, habits and other past traditions. Only freed from past burdens can we take advantage of the present.”
Wow! That hit me squarely between the eyes. I have been wanting to say this to some people who are close to me but I could never find the words that they could understand and not misconstrue. You know, sometimes when you want to give advice to a friend, you know that s/he will misunderstand, will think you want them to change so you can benefit and it is useless to tell them, no, I recommend it for your benefit not for mine. I have set myself free and no power on earth is going to make me give that up.
Anyway this is the ending statement on the eagle presentation:
“Our lives are not determined by what happens to us but by how we react to what happens, not by what life brings to us, but by the attitude we bring to life.
“A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events, and outcomes. It is a catalyst, a spark that creates extraordinary results. Let’s change to make a change!
“When it rains, most birds head for shelter. The eagle is the only bird that, in order to avoid the rain, starts flying above the cloud. Winners win by pushing their limits until pushing their limits becomes their norm.”
Isn’t that a beautiful piece to receive by e-mail? I think it is and I share it with you. This week become the eagle, I preach. Last week I asked, “Are you a puma, a cougar or a jaguar?” What animal will I choose next week? Maybe a bear, but until then don’t worry. I just promise to enjoy Hong Kong.
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