Butterflies vs Ants

 

Educators love maxims.  We have a motivational saying for every circumstance you can imagine.  Each year at my school we adopt a phrase that expresses our commitment and ideals.  This year it's,

"If nothing ever changed, there would be no butterflies."

Pretty.  Motivating.  And true, or at least I think so.  I love this motto. Who wouldn't aspire to be as beautiful as a butterfly?  Who wouldn't identify with the idea that change can be scary, yet liberating all at once?  

Today I saw a very pretty butterfly, but unfortunately I wasn't inspired by it much.  It happened to be dead ( I hope it was lucky enough to be dead) and its carcass was being transported on the backs of a trail of ants.

Ants.  Now there's an insect that nobody writes motivational maxims about.  But the more I considered that, the more I thought...hey, I'd be an ant over a butterfly any day.  

Ants are never lonely.  Ant colonies are huge, and if you are a member, you automatically have 100 relatives and friends who've got your back.  Ants stick together.  Go try stepping your foot on an anthill and see what happens.  

Ants learn what works, and then perfect it.  They don't waste their time devising more elaborate tunneling systems.  This gives them more time to plan ahead for the things that do matter.

Every ant has a job, understands it, and excels at it.  Ants don't give up...they don't even know what it means to give up.  It's a physical impossibility that ants can carry the heavy loads that they do.   I personally think ants do the impossible simply because they believe in themselves.

I never saw a butterfly with that kind of fire.  A butterfly's days are filled with floating about, happily sipping a little nectar, and napping all alone in some flower garden without a care in the world.  

So, while butterflies and flower gardens are lovely, ants are the true dreamers.  I think I'd rather be an ant.