The Elephant and the Hummingbird

7 February 2018

Here is a Chinese parable:

One day an elephant saw a hummingbird lying on its back with its tiny feet up in the air.

“What are you doing?” asked the elephant. The hummingbird replied, “I heard that the sky might fall today, and so I am ready to help hold it up, should it fall.”

The elephant laughed cruelly. “Do you really think,” he said, “that those tiny feet could help hold up the sky?” The hummingbird kept his feet up in the air, intent on his purpose as he replied, “Not alone. But each must do what he can. And this is what I can do.”


So as Mahatma Gandhi used to say “You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

If you change yourself you will change your world. If you change how you think then you will change how you feel and what actions you take. And so the world around you will change. Not only because you are now viewing your environment through new lenses of thoughts and emotions but also because the change within can allow you to take action in ways you wouldn’t have – or maybe even have thought about – while stuck in your old thought patterns.

“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.”

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