The fly on its back

, originally uploaded by naturewalker.

This fly fascinated me!

It landed on its back on the floor, and started to try to straighten itself out. It needed to get back on its feet. It did the only thing it knew how to do. It flapped its wings HARD.

Flapping its wings while being on its back on the floor obviously did not work!

The fly started spinning. The spin was dizyzying! It was os fast that I could not see the tiny wings. I only saw the body, and that too- in a blurr! But it could not staighten out and find its feet again.

Then... the fly stopped moving. Absolute stillness. It was as if the world had come to a stand still. And in a way- for the poor creature- it had! The fly was probably exhausted from the effort. And she (?) did realise that the present way of doing things, namely flapping wings was not working.

I have found myself telling my colleagues, my children and even myself those famous words-

If you keep doing what you are doing, you will keep getting what you are getting.
If you want different results, you must do things differently.

This seemed chillingly true for the trapped fly. It would have to do something other that uselessly and hopelessly moving its wings. It had to get back on its feet doing something else- or it would die of exhaustion. Suddenly- from a mere fascination, it had become a life and death issue!!

And I realised- Nature is not right or wrong, good or bad. It simply IS. What we do- we reap. There is no other way.

People were talking around me. I could hear the conversation but not the content. The buzzing of the fly overpowered all other sensory input for me. I could, if I wanted even identify that the fly was about to make a breakthrough. It had to. Its survival depended on that.

And... then... all movement ceased. The room suddenly went quiet. The buzzing stopped, too.

The fly was dead.

How many times do we make the same mistake?

We exhaust ourselves doing the same ineffective thing again and again, and yet again. We are willing to give up our life but not our way of being. We will flap our wings uselessly till we die but we will not try anything new or different. Yet- we blame God or Nature or Universe for not giving us something new or something different.

Today, listening to a great speaker speak about creating anew life, about exploring new possibilities- and seeing the fly die doing the same thing she does -always- I resolve- to give up an old way of being that does not allow me to find my feet when I land on my back!

I resolve to change the game, if the game I am plaing is not working!

Would you?