I was out walking one of my old familiar routes yesterday.It is good to be home and back in familiar places and faces. To be surrounded with family and friends all glad to see you home is a very good feeling.
My walk was very different from those I have been having this past five weeks. I got ready to go out in my usual shorts and t-shirt. I got to the back door and had to about turn and put on warmer clothes. Even in warmer clothes I was freezing all the way around my walk.
Still I did feel happy to be home, even though I really do love France and its people and places. I have now spent almost five months in France this year.
As I was walking and thinking of all of this I remembered the story of the crow, probably aroused by a group of squawking crows in the field.
A crow lived in the forest and was absolutely satisfied in life. But one day he saw a swan. “This swan is so white,” he thought, “and I am so black. This swan must be the happiest bird in the world.”
He expressed his thoughts to the swan. “Actually,” the swan replied, “I was feeling that I was the happiest bird around until I saw a parrot, which has two colors. I now think the parrot is the happiest bird in creation.” The crow then approached the parrot. The parrot explained, “I lived a very happy life until I saw a peacock. I have only two colours, but the peacock has multiple colours.”
The crow then visited a peacock in the zoo and saw that hundreds of people had gathered to see him. After the people had left, the crow approached the peacock. “Dear peacock,” the crow said, “you are so beautiful. Every day thousands of people come to see you. When people see me, they immediately shoo me away. I think you are the happiest bird on the planet.”
The peacock replied, “I always thought that I was the most beautiful and happy bird on the planet. But because of my beauty, I am entrapped in this zoo. I have examined the zoo very carefully, and I have realized that the crow is the only bird not kept in a cage. So for past few days I have been thinking that if I were a crow, I could happily roam everywhere.”
That’s often our problem also. We make unnecessary comparison with others and become sad. We don’t value what it is that we already have. This all leads to the vicious cycle of unhappiness. We have to learn to be happy in what you have instead of looking at what we don’t have. There will always be someone who will have more or less than you have. Person who is satisfied with what he/she has, is the happiest person in the world.
Have a happy and a good day.
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