Seagull Feeding on Crab
Mukilteo Beach, WA
(Hawaiian Odysseus photo)
It's funny...
You see an interesting event like a flock of seagulls pecking away at something on the beach. Thinking a friendly beachcomber has offered the birds a little snack to eat, you look a little closer.
You then observe that the gulls are feeding on the remnants of fresh crab meat still clinging to the shells.
You notice how one gull, not necessarily the biggest nor the sort of bird that appears to be an inspirational leader, is more successful at getting what he wants.
He is adept and aggressive, Michael Jordan-like in successfully making his way to the goal as his opponents hack away at him. He is undeterred, graceful yet ferocious in his single-mindedness.
One thing is certain: The gull is successful because he is relentless! He never gives up!
You store the visual memory of it somewhere in your brain just as your camera stores the digital memory of it on its card. Soon, all too soon, you forget about it, the events of life pulling at you and distracting you at rapid-fire pace.
Until later...when several days have come and gone, speeding by like the cars on a passing Amtrak train...it's only then, when you find the image in your computer where you've imported it into a file called MUKILTEO; only then, when you summon it up to complement a blog idea whose inspiration has suddenly hit you as you sit at your kitchen table, your laptop staring at you, mocking your excuses and your feeling sorry for yourself and your despondency and your utter lack of direction and your self-imposed inability to get up and do something about IT...whatever IT might be.
So, quite randomly, while actually looking for another photo that--for some strange reason, your computer has chosen to hide from you, only adding to your current sorry state--you find this one...and it's then that you remember the day you took this photo and its sibling images.
Except, there's an added twist. Can it be? YES, IT'S TRUE!
OMG! WTF! LOL!
The very determined and successful gull is actually...
...A ONE-LEGGED ICON!
And it's at that very moment that the proverbial EUREKA light bulb burns brilliantly in your head and Katy Perry's fireworks song goes off like a 3-alarm fire!
Your month-long WRITER'S BLOCK has suddenly been dynamited! And, ooh, baby, the juices begin flowing all over the place...like mango syrup oozing all over a Hawaiian kid's mouth as he bites into the juicy and delectable fruit.
It's then that you snap out of the doldrums and begin getting excited all over again. The endorphins come out to swim around in your bloodstream and wake up everything and everyone in their path--like miniature Paul Reveres crying out, "THE BLOGGER IS COMING! THE BLOGGER IS COMING!"
How in the world can you sit there feeling sorry for yourself because you're unemployed at the moment? So what if your pocket change is but laundry lint? So what if it seems like no one will hire you? So what if you, Hawaiian Odysseus that you are, feel entitled and have all these unrealistic expectations of yourself and others? So what if you're pining away, day after day, for that magical something to happen that will propel you to--what's the phrase the entrepreneurial gurus (READ: INTERNET CON ARTISTS) like to use? Oh, yeah..."the next level."
If a one-legged bird can slam dunk crab shells while all his competitors are fiercely pecking away at him, you can very well get off your fat ass and do something positive with your life!
You're 59 years old in just five days. If you truly want to get to that proverbial next level, then recognize this: What you are experiencing is just another obstacle in your special odyssey.
You've survived the Trojan War, Circe, Scylla and Charybdis, Polyphemus the Cyclops, the sirens, the many challenges of Poseidon, and now you're home in your real-life Ithaca.
This lull...this passage through water when there is no wind for your sails...is yet just another challenge.
The seagull with one leg isn't just another mythical oddity. It is INSPIRATION. It reminds you that you are crippled in a way, too; maybe not physically, but perhaps socially, perhaps emotionally, perhaps because of the negative self-hypnosis to which you've developed an addiction.
So, the question is, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
Take a hint from the one-legged seagull...SET YOUR SIGHT UPON THE PRIZE, AND PASSIONATELY, FEROCIOUSLY, AND WITH GREAT DETERMINATION AND CONVICTION, GO AFTER IT!
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