One of my favorite birds in the hummingbird. I love watching them dance and zoom around the flowers, each other and the feeders. I love their colors and personalities. I love their symbolism, meaning, and energy in nature. The latter is why I have a little hummingbird tattooed on my ankle.
In other words: I’m a fan.
I put my feeders out a few weeks ago and let my mother know of my first sightings. Since she is in Indianapolis, I wanted to give her a heads up that they would soon be headed her way.
The other day I was telling Chief about how quickly I am having to refill my feeders and how they haven’t shown up at moms yet. That’s when he said the funniest thing.
“Do you think our hummingbirds are just the lazy ones that don’t want to fly any further North?”
No!
They are territorial little things and this is their territory, their summer home. They want to be here. They aren’t stuck here because they’re lazy! And by the way, I don’t think there is such a thing as a lazy hummingbird.
That comment not only made me laugh, but it also stuck in my head. And since my mind always twists things into a parallel for careers, personal branding or job searching, I saw a connection to how we beat ourselves up for being happy in our job or career.
It’s such a more, more, more type world. You did $50k in sales, great – now get to $100k. Your business broke the $5M mark, awesome – now do $10M. You made Manager, great – now you need to go after District Manager. With every mark you make it isn’t enough, you should be doing more. You shouldn’t rest on your laurels, keep going, strive for more, go, go, go!
Why?
What’s wrong with being happy right where you are? What if you don’t want to be that next title up? What if money or titles or prestige isn’t the most important thing to you? I’m not knocking any of those, I’m just saying what if right here is your right place?
Why are we looked at as lazy hummingbirds for staying where we are, even if we have the ability to go further?
Society expectations? Peer pressure? Parent blaming? Who knows?
The point is, stop it. If you are happy where you are, stop defending yourself. Stop thinking there is something wrong with you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you, you’ve got it all right!
You’re the lucky one: you figured out what makes you happy and you’re living it. Hooray for you! Being happy right here gives you a longer season to enjoy the sweet nectar of happiness.
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