Banging at the Window: Lessons from a Bug

Fifteen minutes age, some sort of very buzz-y bug flew into my house through the open door.

And for 14 minutes and 30 seconds, I have watched it across the room, trying to fly its way out of a window that won't ever open. It thinks there is freedom on the other side if it could just fly hard enough, fast enough, high enough.

It just keeps trying and trying. The left side? The right side?  Down low? Up high? It's tried every bit of that window... and still it remains stuck inside my house.  Separated from what it wants by a pane of glass.

As I've watched it try ever so hard, I am struck by how like that bug I can be.

I am struck by often I bang myself against walls that I think I want to climb. Bridges that I think I'd like to cross. Roads that I think I'd like to travel.

And I try so hard.  I try so hard and, so often, to no avail.  The walls won't budge. The bridges collapse under my feet. The roads are too tangled with brush to make any headway.

I am so wrapped up in shoving what I want into reality that I don't stop. I don't stop and look around.  and I never see that what I really want is already here. That the road to where I want to go is already behind me.

That if I just turned around, I would see it. I could follow it.

And I could get to where I wanted to be.