Eagle Egg

A man found an eagle's egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chickens and grew up with them.

All his life, the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.

Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.

The old eagle looked up in awe. "Who's that?" he asked.

"That's the eagle, the king of the birds," said his neighbor. "He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth—we're chickens."

So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that's what he thought he was.

~

I share this de Mello parable with you today as your reminder:

Nothing holds us back in life more than the stories we tell ourselves.

So, this weekend, I urge you to reflect on this:

What story are you telling yourself about who you are?

And how can you edit it to tell yourself who you will be?

Look at yourself in awe—

Instead of looking down at what has happened to you,

Look up at what could happen for you...

And take flight.

To small edits and big efforts,

Joey