Yesterday evening, trying to avoid the heat, I stood at the window looking for the hill of “bad” ants my gardener told me he had to kill. I didn’t see it…but I saw the littlest bird imaginable pecking around for food. I instantly looked up around the trees for the nest because I figured such a small bird could not be here by himself and must be close to “home”. I stared at that little bird for almost 5 minutes till it disappeared off to the side. I never saw the nest, its mom or any other birds around for that matter.
My mind went to Matthew 6:26 that says….. “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”
I started thinking that often we as humans are so different.
Most of our parents have raised us and taught us how to fend for ourselves, but as adults we still cling. We still rely on them to make things happen for us, hell, some still rely on them to take care of their daily needs.
How did we get to the top of the food chain again?
Some parents on the other hand shelter us so much that we are naïve and useless to ourselves, or they teach us everything and refuse to let us go to live our own lives.
In the Bahamas our culture somehow lends to people living and relying on their parents well into their 20s, 30s and sometimes beyond. If it works for you, then do your thing.
Remember though, there’s nothing like learning who you truly are from doing it yourself. Living and feeding on second hand beliefs and emotions may not always be the result of staying in the nest, but often we need to be free of its confines, free from the “rules”, their “way of life”, their friends, even down to the way they cook (you want to cook with milk and there’s a big row because mom swears you should use cream….like really?)
We were designed to grow and like that little bird, to find our own food and make our own way in the world in order to be and give our best and TRUEST self to the world and those around us. We were designed to grow and to evolve and to live in OUR purpose.
If staying takes nothing away from that and you feel better doing so, I can’t knock you. Blindly following traditions and values however, should not be encouraged. Get out there and do you and do it well.
While a whole lot of you reading this have been on your own forever and probably feel like you cannot relate, remember that there are people in our lives that we need to push to get out there and do for themselves. Some of us enable our own children, family and friends in dependent behaviour.
Assure them, assure yourself if need be, that just like that little bird, one foot in front of the other…you will be ok, you will find your way.
