The magpie and the crow

An inspirational story from my garden

The Crow and the Magpie

Are you a crow or a magpie?

Someone asked a question in an online forum. Do you have to work your ass off in order to become successful?

The answer came to me this morning as I was having breakfast. I had put some fat balls in the bird feeder over the weekend to feed the local family of magpies. A hungry crow came along to start feeding from the fat ball. He was hanging out of the cage, holding on with all his might, tapping furiously at the fat ball, working hard to get some seeds to bring to his young. The harder he tried the more seeds fell to the ground where the magpie was waiting to hoover them up.

The crow didn’t care that the

magpie was getting the benefits of his work. His purpose was to feed his chicks. He brought all his talents, his strength and his tenacity to this and he got enough. The magpie was also happy, as he got to feed his family. Like the crow, he brought his talents to the job. Without the magpie, there may have been no fat ball. Without the crow, there would have been no seeds. Both got enough to feed their chicks, without resenting the other or making judgements.

So what does this story tell us about ourselves?. For me, whether you are the crow or the magpie, if you use your talents with a purpose and with gratitude you get a lot more than you give. If you trust others to work hard in line with their values then everyone can gain. If you want to feed off someone else’s fat ball then you’ve got to be willing to share. If you're waiting on the ground to gather the seeds that someone else has dropped then you’ve got to let them get at the fat ball.

So which are you? Whichever, we all have an important role to perform and if we can learn to work with each other then there is plenty for all. We can drop our judgements, jealousy and resentment. We can have enough. We can be enough. #meaningfullife #gratitude #inspiration #motivation #leadership