What Are We Chasing?

On my run yesterday morning while I stopped to do some stretches I noticed a jumping insect (not sure what kind). His movements looked absolutely ridiculous! In order to move he would coil himself together and spring up into the air and forward or sometimes backward about four or five inches. He would land on a random part of his body, get up, coil up and do the same thing again. It appeared (and I could be wrong) that he had no idea where he was going but would just propel himself to the next step using lots of energy and then decide from there. Although he didn’t decide from there he just did the same thing all over again, used lots of energy, looked very busy, probably kept very fit but where was he going? The whole experience got me reflecting!

Then later yesterday morning I read my weekly ezine from Michael Neill (renowned success coach and media commentator). He told this wonderful story he came across about the Reverend Fred Craddock, who was visiting family when he struck up an unlikely conversation with an old greyhound dog his niece had recently adopted…

I said to the dog “Are you still racing?”

“No,” he replied

“Well, what was the matter?  Did you get too old to race?”

“No, I still had some race in me.”

“Well, what then?  Did you not win?”

“I won over a million dollars for my owner.”

“Well, what was it?  Bad treatment?”

“Oh, no,” the dog said.  “They treated us royally when we were racing.”

“Did you get crippled?”

“No.”

“Then why?” I pressed.  “Why?”

The dog answered, “I quit.”

“You quit?”

“Yes,” he said.  “I quit.”

“Why did you quit?”

“I just quit because after all that running and running and running, I found out that the rabbit I was chasing wasn’t even real.”

Good isn’t it? Makes you wonder if there is any of us in either this story or the insect I met yesterday. Everyone can be a teacher if we allow them.