Do you struggle to feel accomplished and be happy with where you are in life without always wanting more? Without wanting more short term pleasures such as buying the next shiny new thing, or getting a quick fix of something.. Maybe your ego is never satisfied and it always wants more money, a better job or more stroke recovery?
Here are some words of wisdom from this direct, blunt and not politically correct priest de Mello. His book Awareness begins with this story:
“A man found an eagle’s egg and put it in a nest of barnyard hen. The eagle hatched with a brood of chicks and grew up with them.
“All his life the eagle did what barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet in the air.
“Years passed, and the eagle gre very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.
“The old eagle looked up in awe. Who’s that?’ he asked
“‘That’s the eagle, the king of birds,’ said his neighbour. ‘He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth–we’re chickens.’
So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that’s what he thought he was.”
I like this story, and I think it shows that even the healthiest of people out there have glass ceilings, even if they don’t realise it. For example if you are a stroke survivor, or anyone in fact including a business owner, or employee, you need to realise the way through your glass ceiling is through your past and current problems. Once you can move through these and stop allowing your ego to run your life, you will soar, soar like an eagle. There will be no limits to where you can go and you will not need to chase the next shiny new object or always seek more gratification. You will learn to appreciate where you are in life. And this is extraordinary, just like how the eagle soars high in the sky.
Recent Comments