Last Year's Illness » The Blind Caterpillar Syndrome

Today is my first day of work for 2011, and I’m still on the self-introspection mode. I woke up early and set a goal to finish all my pending tasks – which I did. However, something seems wrong today. It’s my usual toxic Monday and I survived it. Although I finish all to-dos, it doesn’t seem to bring me anywhere. I browse the net and came across this article which answered my dilemma: 
      

The Processionary Caterpillars

John Henry Fabre, the great French naturalist, conducted a most unusual experiment with some processionary caterpillars. These caterpillars blindly follow the one in front of them, hence, the name.  Fabre arranged them in a circle in a flowerpot so that the lead caterpillar actually was behind the last one forming a circle. In the center of the flowerpot he put pine needles, which is their food. The caterpillars started walking around this circular flowerpot. The caterpillars kept going in a circle in the pot. Eventually, after a week of circling around, they dropped dead of exhaustion and starvation with food only inches away from them.

I realized that, like the blind caterpillars, I made the same mistake and, as a result, I had repeated failures despite the fact that opportunities lie within reach. I acquired very little because my own limiting beliefs and the inability to see the solutions blinds me. I follow the crowd of conformity in a circle to nowhere, I refuse to leave the sick cycle carousel because “It’s always been done that way.”

I need to learn a lesson from those caterpillars. Just because I am doing something, doesn't mean I am getting anywhere. There is a big difference between activity and accomplishment. I must evaluate my activities in order to have accomplishment.

Yodz Note: If we confuse activity with accomplishment, we could be making great time but we won't get anywhere. Being busy is our way of feeling in control of our lives… until our busywork spirals out of control and eventually robs us of life itself.

Whew! this must be the effect of exposing myself to too much firecracker smoke. 

How about you? How’s your first Monday of 2011? 

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