On a recent walk in the park with my beloved dog Chewie, I came across some ant hills emerging from a winter’s slumber.
When I was a kid, I was fascinated by ants. I loved putting them in a glass aquarium and watching them work. A few years ago, while writing Entrepreneurial Foundations for Twenty and Thirty Somethings, I spent some time studying ants.
Ants are incredibly powerful, capable of lifting more than 20 times their own body weight. They “absorb” the world around them, “hearing” vibrations in their feet and “breathing” through tiny holes all over their bodies. Ants are fierce, to the point that when they fight, it is usually to the death. Additionally, they are committed to their communities, with some ant colonies covering more than 3,000 miles—such a large social network—all without the use of Instagram!
I was in the midst of observing their emergence into the world above ground and began contemplating my own life. It dawned on me that the ants have a way of life that I envy. They are not driven by 24-hour news cycles, insane political theatre, lives filled with great tension, anxiety, loneliness and depression, (at least not that I know of) often caused by our fast- paced, largely undirected and controlled lifestyles. We seem to be owned by the timetables of the day, not by the seasons.
Then as I walked home, I marveled at freshly blooming flowers in my yard. I paused to thank them for their offering of beauty.
And then, I thought of how undetached the flowers are from all of the world’s politics (though they could be affected by them), and how they simply focus on personal growth and bringing forth the beauty that is inherent in their creation.
Maybe these are ramblings of an old man. But I think not. I watched as nature unfolded before me and realized I worry too much. I get too caught up in things way beyond my control. I allow the world to control my inner-self way too much. I imagine issues and problems that don’t actually exist, except in my own head. I give way too much time to things that don’t really matter.
As I concluded my daily walk of what I call “prayer meditation,” I was filled with deep gratitude for the reminder of what nature had taught me that day. Maybe you will benefit from these observations too. May spring bring a rising up in you of peace and contentment, of love and gratitude, of a realization of your unique worth and value. I hope you can emerge into a beautiful spring of life (like the ants) and with a celebration of the beautiful life and creation you are (like the flowers) and can find peace in a life detached and not controlled by every world event and it’s chaos.
And, that you are lucky enough to have someone to share the most simple observations of life and love with—like my Chewie dog.
