How a pelican taught me an important life lesson
About 6 months ago, I was sitting on the balcony of a beachfront hotel in Morehead City, NC.
There were lots of seagulls and pelicans taking to the sky on that beautiful, sunny morning.
I noticed a pelican hundreds of yards away diving into the ocean. I imagine it was trying to catch fish to eat or something, and I wondered if it had actually caught anything.
It was in that moment that I had a powerful realization that I’ll never forget and that I wished I learned in undergrad. The realization was this:
Whether or not the pelican actually caught a fish or not and whether or not it was even trying to catch fish at all was none of my business. I can sit and wonder what the pelican was doing, but it doesn’t - or shouldn’t - matter to the pelican.
In essence, the pelican was simply 'doing its thing' regardless of what was going through my mind.
You see, I realized in that moment that the only way the pelican could truly fail is if it didn’t dive to catch the fish for fear of what I (the spectator on the balcony) would think about it if it failed to catch a fish.
This is very similar to perfectionism. Perfectionism can prevent you from doing something because you are afraid the rest of the world won’t think it’s perfect or approve.
Had this pelican had perfectionism, it would have probably flown and flown and flown without ever trying to to get the fish.
Can you relate to this? Have you ever been afraid to try something that you wanted to do because of the opinion of someone else?
Have you ever wanted to 'succeed' so that your parents, a mentor, or someone you respected would approve of you?
There have been SO MANY times in my life where I have failed to act and failed to do something I wanted or even needed to do in life because I was afraid of what others would think of me if I failed.