Purple Martins And Persistence

Categories: Blog Apr 15, 2015

[caption id="attachment_3183" align="alignnone" width="350"] They are spying on me. [/caption]



About four years ago a pair of purple martins (swift, arrow-like birds) built a nest under my porch right outside my front door. I mistakenly thought it was cute to watch them build a home in my home and raise their baby birds. They laid two sets of eggs that year.

Like I said, it was a mistake to think it was a cute family of birds living next to me. The next year, those martins returned, as did their children. Four years later, I have a colony of martins that show up every year to build MULTIPLE nests under my porch. We can’t even walk in our yard without being attacked by these aerial, acrobatic, fighter jets. The mess they make on our porch - the bird pooh - eeeewwwwwwwhhhhh!

I have tried everything to discourage the returning birds from building their apartment complexes under my porch - everything shy of ending their lives. Last year, I mounted a nerf gun ambush and attack - for days. It didn’t work. We even put obstacles on the nooks and crevasses they attach their nest to, but the little architects built over the obstacles and incorporated them into their nests. This year, my wife nailed hollow bags of air and paper all underneath our porch roof to prevent the martins from having a place to grasp a firm footing, so they can’t perch and build. It is not working; they have learned how to flatten the bags. This morning, two “spies” were perched over my door, watching me - planning and plotting against me.

Those @#*&! birds are so persistent. Why? Because their home - their place to nest and raise a family - is programmed into them. I started with two birds a few years ago, and now I have a whole colony of birds with the same program: the Build a Home on Tim’s Porch program! It is in them, they can’t seem to do anything else. As a result, they are relentless and tireless in their pursuit to build their nest on my porch.

Somewhere in their operating system is a map and directive to come to my house every spring so they can attack my kids and pooh on my porch. It’s just in them, and so they do what they were designed to do - with relentless persistence.

And that is the way we should be: relentlessly persistent in doing what we were designed to do - moving. Like the martins, we too have an original operating system. Our operating system, our OS, also has a “map” and a directive: move and become.

We were made to move so that we could become. Become what? Strong, healthy, vibrant and unique. Our OS was given to us to progress us through certain movements and patterns so that we could build the strength and freedom that we need to successfully live a vibrant life and become unique individuals. This is true. Our movements shape our bodies and our brains, but they also shape our experiences, our thoughts, our emotions, and our personalities. We become through movement. Or, we don’t become through lack of movement.

Unlike the martins, we have a program override called choice. With our choices, we decide to follow our OS directives or we decide to override them, or completely ignore them. Those martins can’t help but build a nest on my porch. We decide whether or not we will move, how much we will move, how often we will move, and how we will move.

As children, we are more like the martins. We move because the program is too strong to override. At age one, most of us aren’t thinking about spending hours in a chair yet. We have a world to explore and a body to build. We have a directive in our operating system to build a brain and grow a body. The world is a playground and we must explore it!

As adults we learn to hush the directive. The world is not a playground anymore. It is a land of snares, pits, traditions, and stressors. Instead of living to explore, we strive to get by, or survive. We yield to the circumstances around us and we choose not to follow that strong drive within us that begs us to move. As a result, our bodies don’t necessarily work the way they were designed. Instead of being filled with strength, they are filled with weakness. Instead of being resilient, they seem fragile. Instead of being mobile, they are stiff. Instead of feeling good, they feel bad.

We have a directive. We have a design. MOVE - relentlessly and persistently. It is the program. Breathe into your belly, move that big ole head, frolic down on the ground, walk and run with coordinated, opposing limb movement. Don’t override your design.

If little birds refuse any obstacles to stand in their way, surely people can overcome anything - even their own lack of motivation. Choose to move and return to your map of movement. Reset and restore your body so you can live with strength.

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