365 Lessons

(Critical Thinking About What The World Is Teaching Me Every Day)

#36 Caterpillars are Beautiful Too

 

[Lesson Break Down]

I wonder what caterpillars think of butterflies when they see them.  Are they envious?  Do they notice butterflies above and beyond other creatures or feel some special familiarity.  Do they know what they’re going to become?  Do they see the beauty in being caterpillars?  Thinking about and seeking to understand the beauty of being a caterpillar helps me grow. 

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I often find myself feeling isolated, but not realizing it until I reflect on it.  Sometimes it’s difficult to see beyond the business of my day-to-day life.  I run around trying to cram so much into every moment that occasionally I forget to really absorb the beauty and wonder of it all.  I recently read it articulate by the Dali Lama that we should each consider every other person at least as important as ourselves.  I think it’s good to take it further in considering everything important and incredible, individually but equally.

Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend who is getting ready to welcome his second child in the world.  He was concerned about sharing the love that he feels for his first.  I didn’t understand how that could be done until my second was born.  My wife and I had the same conversation many times in anticipation.  We realized very quickly after the little guy was born that there is plenty to go around.  We each immediately loved him with the same intensity that we love my first child.  It’s not shared.  It’s totally unique, and it’s equal.

Everything isn’t the same.  Caterpillars are different than butterflies in many obvious ways but there is beauty in both, and maybe more importantly, one would not exist without the other.  Another interesting quote I heard recently suggests that caterpillars give no indication that they’re going to become butterflies.  As an educator that makes me think about the fact the each of my students is going to grow up.  Some of them are going to be best selling authors, some will discover the cure for cancer, some will paint houses, some will teach, some will drive trucks, others will serve coffee, and who knows what else.  They are each incredible now and they will each be incredible when they become whatever it is they’re on their way to being…and what their on their way to being after that.  Even when we have some idea of where our paths lead the future is mysterious in many ways.  When I see the beauty in what I am in any given moment I feel incredible.  I think we should all strive to see the beauty in one another, all the time.  We are all truly incredible, none more than any other, individually and equally incredible!