For instance, whenever she has the camera on any of our many trips, she will take at least one close up photo of a seagull, dove, flower or if we are at the tidal pools, a starfish. Our photo albums are filled with these close up pictures! As you look through our photo albums you will see wonderful human interest photos and beautiful landscapes and bam, you are staring down the nostril of a seagull! When we sit down and reminisce, we always chuckle at these pictures. It has become a little joke between us. As you can imagine, I feel I have a personal relationship with all sorts of these birds!
So when I was eating breakfast on my balcony the other morning I was visited by a whole bunch of my friends! It always amazes me that you can be completely by yourself on the balcony without food but as soon as you bring a tiny bit of food out there you are assaulted by 20 of these flying garbage disposals.
As I always do, I warned them that they wouldn't get a bit of food. I know, insert funny mental image here! I went so far as to chase them all off but to no avail. As my wife can attest, I am not the most tidy eater in the world and just one little tidbit of food attracts a hosts of breakfast guests.
What I admired the most about the doves was their persistence. They never give up! You can drive them away but they slowly come back to see if you are really serious about not giving them food. Time after time they would come back. One had a stub for a leg and that didn't seem to bother it at all. It was like it was telling me that having a stub leg had nothing to do with eating at all! As long as it could get to the general area, it had a great chance to get a free meal just as the other "whole" doves had at that time! This dove wasn't making any excuses!
How about us? Are we limited in what we can accomplish by what we perceive as handicaps? Are we frozen by fear or insecurity that might keep us from really fulfilling our full potential? Perhaps we are complacent in our efforts to learn, grow, help or experience.
I have to say that sometimes I can be complacent, especially in my efforts to maximize an experience. Not my wife! When the perfect situation opens up for us to have the perfect experience I tend to stay put but my wife goes forward and asks the right questions at the right time and 98% of the time succeeds in her quest to improve our experience! Note to self: follow my wife's example!
Stub, the dove, as I have affectionately called it, can't use its severed leg as an excuse not to maximize its effort to obtain food. It has much more riding on its actions -- its life! It makes its own opportunities and maximizes its efforts by showing up for an opportunity for food even when the human is explaining that there is no way that is going to happen!
Do we maximize our efforts by showing up for opportunities even when someone tells us that there isn't any chance? Does our attitude dictate that we stay put or do we maximize our effort by showing up for an opportunity to learn, grow, help or experience?
Will Marré tells about his grandson's attitude after a seemingly horrible accident. It is an encouraging read.
I took some photographs of the doves on my balcony and I think I'm going to put one on my desk to remind me of Stub's example of persistence and no excuse attitude. It's a close up.
Until next time,
Jerry de Gier
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