Unflappable

A friend of mine lived in a neighborhood that had many owls. An evening walk would almost guarantee hearing the calls of more than one kind of owl and if you were lucky, you could spot where they were perched. Their ability to fly silently, almost undetected, has always impressed me. I experienced this on one of those evening walks when a large barred owl flew towards me on it’s way to a rooftop perch. I never heard it, it was the movement that caught my eye.

A couple years ago, that friend sent me a video of an owl in a tree close to her house. It was the middle of the afternoon and this large owl had positioned itself high in the tree and stayed there most of the day. She filmed it because throughout the day other birds were bombarding it trying to make it leave. What made the video special is that no matter how many times the other birds flew directly at the owl, it didn’t move. It ignored the continuous badgering and never gave up it’s position. It’s a great video and a story I have shared with friends because it’s a live depiction of the power of resilience.

I think most of us have experienced a situation in our lives where someone was trying to knock us down or make us fall somehow. (I mean this in a figurative sense pertaining to situations, not literally, like falling off a chair). When we are young or immature, our likely reaction is to fight back. There might be an exchange of insults or finger pointing and no one wins or comes away any wiser.

When I was a teenager, I complained to my mother about some older girls that picked on me and told her I hated them. She told me that hate was for things and not people and if I felt hatred towards those girls I should actually feel sorry for them instead. What? Feel sorry for them? WHY? She said it was sad that they felt the need to pick on somebody and I should be grateful that I wasn’t like that. That advice went a long way. I don’t ever say I hate a person. In fact, since my mother shared that advice with me, I stopped feeling hatred towards anyone. I reserve hate for things only, like cilantro (tastes like soap) or stubbing my toe.

Silence is true wisdom’s best reply. Wise souls speak loudly in silence. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can say is nothing at all. Listen and silent are spelled with the same letters. The quieter you become, the more you can hear.

Despite being dive -bombed and squawked at for hours, the owl didn’t react. The birds attempting to make it leave eventually gave up and moved on to something else. I love this visual. There are so many parables to real life situations. I imagine the smaller birds as obstacles I might encounter in trying to accomplish something. Keep them coming, I’m not losing focus! Or that owl is a person facing one of life’s adversities, yet it remains calm, knowing if it reacts in the same way as what’s being thrown at it, it will only create more chaos.

Several years ago, I was in a meeting with about 20 co-workers. It was a monthly meeting to discuss new business, changes in processes and anything else our director felt we needed to know. A woman in the meeting spent a long ten minutes complaining about everything. She was agitated and stated that after working there for 25 years, she felt she was entitled to a better work environment. I sat directly across from her and listened in dismay as she went on and on. I felt sorry for her. I felt sorry that she wasn’t grateful she had a job for 25 years with a generous salary and benefits and was only focused negative things. I knew I had crossed a threshold of wisdom when I felt zero desire to tell her to stop complaining and didn’t react to anything she said, especially because most of it was insignificant and exaggerated. In my head I offered her sympathy for being so miserable about something she really should have been grateful for. I felt a sense of power in my silence where others chimed in and added to her grumblings.

The owl in that tree remained unflappable. It gave no reaction to the ones who relentlessly tried to get one, forcing them to give up. The owl’s wisdom and strength won. It stood firm and stayed true to its character and the squawkers went away.

A wise old owl lived in an oak. The more he saw, the less he spoke. The less he spoke, the more he heard. Why can’t we all be like that wise old bird?