An ant can give a person many life lessons.
A person once shared about the miserable situations that life had put in front of him and said “I was living in Bombay and now settled in New York. I leave for work at 7.30 in the morning and get back home only in the late evening. I have to continuously struggle between achieving organizational goals and maintaining a work-life balance. This makes me tensed at times and I wonder about the imbalance my life is going through right now.
He simply explained a point. In life, people choose their paths. It is our choice to make. His mentor elaborated “It is the fact of your life that you are busy and have chosen to be in a busy city, a result of the choice you made. In spite of all this, you can make one more choice. It is to learn how to relax, balance and make your relationships peaceful and lively. Life is like a painting, not arithmetic. It is the painter’s choice of how to beautifully paint the canvas called ‘Life’.”
The person was curious to know more, he asked: “What should I do to give quality time to my family in spite of my busy schedule, how can I feel relaxed and proactively go about reaching my organizational goals?”
He was advised to observe an ant and learn how to better organize his life better. Ants overcome life-threatening obstacles in the world.
He was astonished by this. Observing an ant can make a person learn many things.
Any obstacle that put in an ants way, it is so flexible that it can either go underneath it, over it or around it. Flexibility is one of the great virtues of life.
An ant never quits. It struggles to the best of its ability and exhibits the attitude of ‘Winners never quit; quitters never win.’
It has tremendous planning ability. In summer, it starts planning for winter, like building up the anthill, collecting food and so on.
When winter arrives, it patiently waits for it to pass by and waits for summer.
At any given point in time, it tries all that is possible. The holistic approach to life brings many achievements and positivity to a person.
Ants operate in a Team. TEAM can rightly be abbreviated as Together Empowering to Achieve More.
It shows the humility to follow the leader-It is a strength by its virtue.
Ants build an ant hill-an engineering feat unitedly, where even the cooling effect is taken care of. It shows sheer team unity and intelligence.
While moving, ants exhibit the perfect coordination’ as a result of which the right feedback is sent to the ants following them on the path they are treading on. Effective communication in life can help a person overcome many hurdles.
We can learn a lot by comparing the following qualities of an ant:
Flexibility: Flexibility is the mother of creativity. Being flexible in life can help one better adjust to any situation and brings a lot of positive changes around. Do you think you are enough flexible in giving time to your family? Do you appreciate all that you have in life with ranting over small affairs?
Planning: Are you a planner? Planning makes life smooth by helping prioritize things. It assists in taking important decisions at the right time. You can start planning your life by jotting down checklists and to-do lists.
Patience: Patience is a virtue every individual must abide by. Developing the quality of patience and having an understanding of the fact that things never remain the same makes our lives much easier to live.
Enjoy each moment. Living in the present and rejoicing little things in life can make things easier to deal with. Clinging to the past or just thinking about the future can lead to dissatisfaction.
TEAM: Can you drop the “I” in you and operate from “WE”? The ‘WE’ feeling in mind helps in building cohesive relationships with people around you. It leads to the generation of positivity and happiness.
Humility: Can you be humble to follow the rules of life rather than treat rules as binding forces? Being humble in life teaches a person many important life experiences.
Networking: The ability to network and connect with people can introduce you to many great learnings and opportunities in life. Each person in your life can definitely contribute something positive and help you grow into a better person every day.
I hope these ideas help you in building up a successful ant hill. Sit back, relax and allow your mind to create a natural balance.
Source: Tushar Vakil
