Teachings from a Bee

August 04, 2019

Sometimes the littlest things in life can teach us great things. I believe that no matter who it is, there’s something valuable we can learn if we challenge the way we see things.

Here’s one that I saw when I was meditating that latched itself onto my mind. I’m constantly thinking about this.

A bee(or wasp) was trapped in the window while I was meditating. As it way trying to escape, it was doing the same thing over and over and over and over.

It tries to climb up, and then fly out. Over and over and over and over. If this isn’t the definition of insanity, then I don’t know what is. As Einstein said - it’s doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. What the hell. I was so fascinated by this, that I took a video of it:

20190627_141448.mp4

Yo. If you want to accomplish stuff, but you continue fail to make progress, then you need to change your strategy.

It made me think about why the hell we keep doing that won’t work without changing anything. Part of it is probably because people in general are super-resistant to change after their teenage years. I think this is the time when you crystallize most of your thought processes and value systems. Also, think about it - instead of a bad habit, what if you had an amazing one? Wouldn’t you want to maintain that and continue to ride the gravy train? The same mechanism that prevents you from changing is also the same mechanism that maintains great things about you. So yeah, change is hard but not impossible.

To get back on track, don’t do stuff that doesn’t work. Again, you need to change your strategy. Not losing weight? Don’t say I’m going to lose weight this time and go for that run tomorrow. Hell no. You need to change your strategy. You say I’m going to for that run. Now. In the middle of the night at 2 am. If it’s dangerous outside, fine - run in place. Or maybe you’ll put a scale in front of your door before you go to work to keep in mind of what you measure. If you don’t go for that run tomorrow morning after you put a scale in front of your door, you’re definitely going to feel guilty. Maybe you should start counting calories - you optimize for what you measure right? Or give up the control of getting groceries to a more sensible human being. Or sign up with a trainer who will make sure he will gas you to Mars. There are so many different options. Don’t just do the same thing expecting different results.

Sidenote: My biggest problem is losing stuff by letting my room devolve into compete chaos. One way I’m thinking of mitigating this is to build in cleaning break while I’m working. Take a break, instead of watching some stupid YouTube video, maybe I can turn on some tunes and spent 5 minutes cleaning to reduce clutter. Or maybe I should do this before I go to sleep and think about how to build a trigger into my routine. Maybe put like some sort of stuffed animal or something to remind me? Hmm.

To get back on track again, don’t be like the goddamn bee. If the bee went in an opposite direction, then - done! Escape! It’s a legitimate strategy is go to the opposite direction - a direction we’ve never considered before.

One more thing - this bee here also teaches about local minimums. From a complete, localized view of the bee, you are making the right decision at every step. However, if you zoom out and see the world from my point of view, it’s a completely wrong way to approach the problem. It works both ways - it’s a duality. It may be making the wrong move locally, but globally it’s actually on track.

In life, you may think that you are going in the right direction from your localized point of view, but it’s the wrong way to go. Similarly, you may think that your life is completely screwed up and your current situation is a dumpster fire, and you’re completely off track, but if you look at the global perspective you’re actually going in the right direction.

So what happened to the bee?

I got back to my room later in the day, the bee wasn’t there. There’s a lesson in that too - keep trying! You’ll be able to make it!

Now, the bee, free from the grasps of my evil window, continues his quest to obtain the finest nectar the streets of New York City can offer. Our bee braves this journey so one day it can give offer his nectar to his beloved queen, who is dying.

Dying in an oven. Also known as New York City.