A couple of days back, my father brought a bird feeder home. It was gifted to him by one of his friends who’s an avid bird watcher and gave it as a gift to spread awareness about birds.
The birdfeeder was pretty easy to set up – just fitting in a piece or two, and voila! You had your birdfeeder ready. It even had seeds for the win.
Excitedly, I and my younger sister put it up on our terrace expecting a flurry of small birds gathered around the birdfeeder the next morning.
The next morning, we had nothing *cricket chirps*.
The next day, nada.
We got practically nothing till the next 3 or 4 days. We were even about to take the feeder off.
One afternoon we saw a pigeon lurking around the birdfeeder.
After observing it for some time, we saw it pecking its beak in the birdfeeder.
We paid attention to it for some time, and after making sure the pigeon understood what it was, we rejoiced. But we took care that we were not loud enough to shoo the pigeon away.
The same evening, the bird feeder was full of pigeons (and even some crows) making their way to the new attraction.
It was now confirmed – the Birds’ society had caught on to what the weird-looking thing was.
Gazing at the birds, it struck me that it’s not the birds that couldn’t understand what this new thing was.
Don’t we all react the same way to a new idea or a change?
It takes time for a new idea or a concept to get accepted and spread – even in human society.
It takes time for people to get familiar and acclimatized to new things just as the birds took time to know that the weird-looking thing was a bird feeder.
Whenever a new idea comes in, it is assessed and scrutinised before it takes its industry by the storm.
Many a time, they even get rejected before they are accepted by the masses. There’s no dearth of examples to prove this point.
People remained unconvinced when Pythagoras told them the earth is round, and not a flat surface. Galileo was sentenced to house arrest for telling people we’re not the centre of the universe, and we revolve around the sun, not the other way round.
The bottom line is that people can be slow to change and it can even take successful ideas some time to catch on. However, that should not deter you from creating your ideas and spreading them out in the world.
Recap for memory:
- People react slowly to change.
- Often you might face resistance when coming up with something revolutionary.
- Great ideas may even get rejected before they’re widely accepted. However, that must not keep you from spreading your own ideas.
Fantastic write up and a great analogy to talk about #change.
While the world knows that ‘change’ is the only constant … yet accepting change or being a part of the change is the most challenging journey people go through.
Thanks for the powerful write-up and giving a new dimension to the Bird-feeder !!
Couldn’t agree more! Thank you for the birdfeeder 😀