- Stupid bat
- Good, I hate bats
- Poor little bat :-(
Wildlife experts believe the bat was injured and maybe that's why it didn't flee. Maybe it was just too worn out. Maybe it was confused. Maybe it was too afraid to let go - it didn't have the faith to let go and either make it to safety or die trying.
I think people can be a lot like that bat; I know I can. We hang on to what we have our hands around because we know what it is and how to deal with it. We have this false sense of safety because we have this false sense of control.
No one really knows what that little bat was thinking, if bats think that is, but in my mind it was something like this:
"Okay, I made it. I'm just gonna hang on to this big cliff awhile and rest. Man, my wing really hurts. Last time I listen to Bob - that jerk. '...Oh, let's fly over here...lots of good skeeters and nobody hunts this area...it'll be tall cotton for us buddy...' Kind of bright and noisy around here. Nobody from the colony either. I wonder what happened to Bob? I hope I didn't mess up my rotator cuff. The old lady is gonna kill me when I get home.
Whoa! What the heck is that noise? Why is the cliff shaking? What the heck is going on! Should I let go? No, no, ... I'm just gonna hang on. I don't know if I can fly. I better just hang on, it's too risky to move. ... AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!"
I know, I know, I have issues. Who the heck knows what was going through that little bat's mind. But if it was me, that's probably the way it would have happened - blame Bob and then hang on. The blaming Bob part is a whole 'nother story for 'nother day but the hanging on, yeah that's something a lot of us need to learn to deal with.
To me it's a matter of perspective. That little bat thought he was hanging on to a cliff, something big and solid. Cliffs don't move around a lot. They tend to stay pretty much the same. Except that cliff from a different perspective wasn't all that big or permanent.
We're a lot like that bat. We hang on to what's right in front of us because at this given moment that's what's real to us. It might be a job, a house, or even a bad relationship. It's real and it's now. The problem is we aren't looking at the big picture, but maybe don't want to look at the big picture, or maybe we have a messed up idea of what the big picture is.
So what's all this mean? To me it means we need to stop and check our perspective and to do that we have to be honest with ourselves. That's not always an easy thing to do. We also have to realize that our perspective is going to be based on where we are looking from and what we believe to be true. Without a sound place to start, a belief system, you may find it hard to decide if what you are looking at is right or wrong, true or false, up or down.
So, what's your perspective of your life? Are you hanging on to something solid or something that may end up taking you for a wild ride?
