Answering the Call...
Once upon a time an eagle's egg was found by a farmer and
mistaken for a chicken egg. The egg was placed with the other eggs in
the incubator at the hen house.
Some weeks later that egg hatched. The baby eagle was born and
raised as a chicken with his chicken peers. He was taught to peck and
scratch. He was taught to scurry along the ground like the other
chickens. He was sternly warned against flying, because chickens don't
really fly, they flutter and fall.
This Eagle made a miserable chicken. He didn't scurry well. He
didn't peck well. He was always hungry, because chicken feed was just
never satisfying to him. The other chickens found him disruptive.
After years of struggling to be a normal chicken, this poor
eagle's self esteem was pretty low. He hated himself. "Why am I so
big, and awkward and unusual looking?" he would wonder, "Why can I not
find satisfaction in those things that satisfy all the other
chickens?"
"Is this all ther is to life?" he agonized, "Where's the thrill
and excitement?!"
He began to do more and more disruptive things just to get a
little hit of excitement. He was starved for action and adventure, so
he tried to make up his own thrilling dramas around the chicken coop.
Other chickens caught on to his discontent and called him selfish,
disordered and a troublemaker. The poor eagle took it all to heart and
became depressed.
One day, high overhead the young eagle saw another eagle soaring
high in the sky. It took his breath away. Fot that moment he felt a
surge of recognition. He felt something inside him stirring and he
felt more alive than he ever had.
In this excitement he told his family of chickens what he saw and
they scoffed at him. "Flying is risky, irresponsible and impractical."
the chickens warned. "When will you grow up and join the pecking order
of this chicken coop. Why can't you be more like your peers?"
The young eagle was shamed and disheartened. He felt hopeless and
alone as he fell to sleep that night.
The next day, to his delight, he spotted that same eagle soaring
up above. And this time the soaring bird le out the cry of an eagle.
The moment the young eagle heard this cry something unexpected
happened. The young eagle raised by chickens found this body lurching
and his throat contracting. Uncontrollably his entire being responded
to that eagle's cry with his own majestic eagle cry.
He was astonished. "What had just happened?" "Did that glorious
sound come from him? Chickens don't make that sound! Only eagles do.
... Wait. ... Only eagles do!"
The young eagle, finally aware of what he truly was, stretched
out his wings for the first time and flew. He was no longer imprisoned
by the chicken coop, because he was no longer imprisioned by the idea
that he had to be a chicken. Nothing could contain him anymore.
A chicken coop can only coop chickens; it cannot stop an eagle
from soaring when he hears his call.
Have you heard your call?
Maybe this is it.
in The DaVinci Method by Garret LoPorto
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