Snake and Eggs or 3 Things We Can Learn From a Mongoose

I believe we can learn a lot from observing nature – take the mongoose for instance. You may already know that the mongoose is one of the few animals that will hunt and eat snakes, but did you also know that they love to eat eggs?

The smallest breed of mongoose, the Kusimanse, lives in South Africa. Just like their larger cousins, the Kusimanse love to eat eggs. The problem is that while the larger mongoose can crack open an egg using their claws, the Kusimanse is too small and weak. Instead, when a Kusimanse finds an egg he will roll it around on the ground until he finds a rock he can bump it against. You see, the Kusimanse has learnt that whenever an egg and a rock meet the rock will always win.

Now, it seems to me that there are 3 important lessons we can learn from this tiny mongoose.

First, there is more than one way to complete a task. The Kusimanse may not crack open an egg the same way as the larger mongoose, but he gets the job done.

Second, no matter how small or weak we may be, no matter how inferior we may feel, if we are persistent enough and creative enough we can still accomplish our goals.

And third, it is okay to be different. The Kusimanse doesn’t care that he cracks open an egg differently from the larger mongoose, he’s just happy that he can have his snake and eggs for breakfast.

Tomorrow's Happiness Begins Today

Some people spend their entire lives waiting for happiness to arrive on its own and it never comes. So what are they doing wrong and what can you do to find happiness? The answer is simple; each individual needs to work at creating their own happiness.

I like how Richard Bach, the author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, put it when he said, “If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess you do have a problem.”

If you want to be happy tomorrow you need to begin working at it today.

We can begin our journey on the path to happiness by taking responsibility for our own actions. Here is a true example of someone who is adding to her own unhappiness by not taking responsibility:

A lady wrote in to our local newspaper complaining about other drivers and claiming that their poor driving was making her late for work. What were the other drivers doing to cause her this unhappiness? You won’t believe it, but her complaint was that they were yielding to other traffic at a Yield sign at a busy intersection! She was so upset by their actions that she had to write to the newspaper and vent her anger. Now, yield means to ‘give way’ and that’s exactly what the other drivers were doing, yielding to other traffic and obeying the law, but this woman was finding their actions unacceptable. I suspect that her boss has been giving her a hard time about being late every day and rather than taking responsibility for her tardiness and leaving the house a couple of minutes earlier each morning, she instead chooses to blame the other drivers who are acting appropriately – the perfect example of someone causing their own unhappiness.

Once we have decided to take responsibility for our own happiness we then need to understand where happiness comes from. Actions are short-term, they happen and they are over, while the memories created by the action can last forever. Another way to look at it is that memories are to the mind what a mirror is to the eyes – a reflection. The mirror reflects the physical while our memories reflect the emotional. When you look in the mirror, it reflects what you look like; when you look in your mind it reflects who you are.

We tend to spend a lot of time trying to improve what we see in the mirror, but little or no effort trying to improve our thoughts. Every action creates a memory. If you really want to be happy tomorrow you must choose carefully what you do today, because today’s actions will be reflected in tomorrow’s memories and you cannot make them go away. Everything you do today will be in tomorrow’s reflection. This means that if a person says or does something which angers us, we can either add to the painful memory with our own negative actions or we can replace them with positive actions and create positive memories.

We all want to like what we see in the mirror. To be truly happy we also have to like what we see reflected in our minds. What will your memories be filled with? Will your reflections be filled with goodness and joy or with bitterness and anger?

Happiness is achievable. In future blogs I will show you many simple techniques for controlling anger and reducing the stress in your life.

What have you done today that will bring you happiness tomorrow?