The Ant

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Posted by: " Aarthi Vijayasarathy " aarthi.vijayasarathy

arthi.vijayasarathy

 

One morning I wasted nearly an hour watching a tiny ant carry a huge

feather cross my back terrace. Several times it was confronted by

obstacles in its path and after a momentary pause it would make the

necessary detour. At one point the ant had to negotiate a crack in the

concrete about 10 mm wide. After brief contemplation the ant laid the

feather over the crack, walked across it and picked up the feather on

the other side then continued on its way.

 

I was fascinated by the ingenuity of this ant, one of God's smallest

creatures. It served to reinforce the miracle of creation. Here was a

minute insect, lacking in size yet equipped with a brain to reason,

explore, discover and overcome. But this ant, like the two-legged

co-residents of this planet, also share human failings.

 

After some time the ant finally reached its destination - a flower bed

at the end of the terrace and a small hole that was the entrance to

its underground home. And it was here that the ant finally met its

match. How could that large feather possibly fit down small hole Of

course it couldn't. so the ant, after all this trouble and execrising

great ingenuity, overcoming problems all along the way, just abandoned

the feather and went home. The ant had not thought the problem through

before it began its epic journey and in the end the feather was

nothing more than a burden.

 

Isn't life like that! We worry about our family, we worry about money

or the lack of it, we worry about work, about where we live, about all

sorts of things. These are all burdens - the things we pick up along

life's path and lug them around the obstacles and over the crevasses

that life will bring, only to find that at the destination they are

useless and we can't take them with us.