Every morning starting roughly at 6:30 in the morning, there is a black and white bird that starts a several hour long tapping session on the reflective windows of the sliding doors on my apartment. I often wake up to a light tap-tap-tap and can see this black and white bird flapping its wings vigorously in front of the window and tapping it in various places. After a good fight with one of the windows, the bird will fly to the other set of sliding doors, or will occasionally make its way to the back of the apartment and give the small window a piece of its mind as well. I'm no ornithologist, but I'm assuming this is a territorial bird that sees its own reflection as an intruder and is performing its ritual battle to claim ownership over the outside of my apartment (alternatively, this could be an extremely intelligent bird that is repeatedly telling us to get the hell out of his apartment).
As I was watching the bird this morning while enjoying my cup of coffee, and thinking "man, it must be exhausting to fight yourself everyday", I had the fast realization that I (or any human) may not actually be much more evolved that this here bird. Sure, I can sit here and say "stupid bird, can't even recognize its own reflection", but I CAN recognize my own reflection and, yet, don't I also fight myself every single day? Just like this bird, aren't I also my own worst enemy sometimes? Haven't I had regular - possibly even daily - moments of self-critique, self-doubt, and self-anger when looking in the mirror? And how often is it that I realize that I'm actually the one standing in my own way?
For me, it's not a realization that I display the same behaviors so I should stop judging the bird so harshly. Instead it's a realization about just how silly this bird is acting on a daily basis and that I (and we as humans) actually have the ability to change that. So next time I'm looking in the mirror, or reflecting about myself, and I feel the instinct to fight myself, to engage in a battle with the enemy, I will remember this bird and see that my behavior is no different from literally hitting my head against the mirror and just as I realized this morning - it's exhausting to fight yourself everyday, so why waste that energy? At least that's my 2 cents.
