Attitude is Everything
Wat I’ve Learned fom Chicens
Join other Aspire readers who have been delighted by this continuing tale of one woman’s awakening from frustration and overwhelm to purpose and joy. It all started with a lapful of eggs. You’ll find a chapter unfolding in each issue of Aspire – you can check out the previous chapters at
www.raisinggrace.com/Aspiregifts.html
by Sharon Roy
One week to the day after the chickens hatched, I came downstairs to find one lonely chick in the incubator, the sole hatchee of the second batch of eggs. It just stood there looking around at the strange surroundings, probably instinc- tively knowing that this styrofoam world was not what God intended. I opened the lid and gathered the new life into my hands. I brought it up to my face and we looked at each other for a moment, then I put it with the others in the box on the dining room table.
The other chicks rushed over as a pack and dove at the new chick in a vicious at- tack. “Stop it!!,” I screeched as I reached in and snatched it out of there as fast as I could. My heart was pounding. Now what was I going to do? The older chicks were now nearly twice the size of this little guy after only a week of growing and appar- ently putting it in with them just wasn’t going to work. I slumped into a chair and thought about this as the little chick snug- gled into the nest my hand made against my body. I had one chick that wasn’t accepted by the others. I certainly hadn’t counted on that. While a certain amount of struggle is a good thing for a young chick, I couldn’t allow it to be murdered! And I also couldn’t carry it around with me all day, so I put the lone chick back in the incubator and went in search of another carton. Soon this newest ball of fluff had a separate habitat in an Amazon box next to the others. My thirteen-year-old stepson Liam named this chick Abe, and even though Abe later turned out to be a girl, Abe she remained.
Within the next several days, it be- came clear that the eight older chicks were quickly outgrowing their stereo box and would need a larger space. It was too soon to put them outside so Mac and I headed off to the appliance store and
Attitude is Everyting
Chapter 4:
came home with a dishwasher box. We set it on the dining room floor and layered it with a thick pad of newspaper. Mac added a bowl of food and I decided to try something new to see if I could stop the chicks from pooping in their water. I filled a small bowl with water and placed a saucer over it. Then I turned the whole thing upside-down. Just as I hoped a small amount of water seeped out from under the bowl and filled the saucer. As the chicks drank, more water would be released. I put this contraption up on an- other inverted bowl to make it the same height as the chick’s heads. After hanging a lamp over the edge, the new home was complete and it was time to move the birds into it.
On a hunch, I took Abe and put her in first. Mac and I watched her scamper around by herself for twenty minutes or so. Then we added one of the other chicks. To my amazement, as Mac set the second chick into the box, Abe ran over and pecked it once on the beak. Bonk. For some reason this caused the new chick to freeze in place. It didn’t move for several long moments and when it did Abe pecked it in the beak again. Bonk. I added another chick and the same thing happened. Whenever they moved, Abe pecked them in the beak and froze them again. We added another and another until they were all in the box together. Abe pecked each in turn as it was added. Bonk. Bonk. Bonk. Abe couldn’t keep up with them all after a while and they started moving around. Some went over to eat and Abe ran over and chased them off. Abe ate first and only then were the others allowed to eat. Little Abe was still half the size of the older chicks, but she clearly ruled the roost. And she was never the victim again. Within an hour, all of the chicks were running around together as one flock.
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What happened? How had Abe gone from being the victim to being the boss within a few days? Clearly Abe decided that the new box belonged to her during the twenty minutes she was alone in there and she was defending her space. There is an old saying: It’s not the size of the dog in a fight that matters, it’s the size of the fight in the dog. Little Abe stood her ground in a big way.
In this case, the chick benefited from a lack of information—specifically, a lack of memory of the past and a lack of worry about the future. She didn’t know she was smaller than the others. She didn’t remember that they had attacked her just a few days earlier, so she was not paralyzed with fear that they would at- tack her again. The only thing she knew was that each bird was entering her space and needed to be dealt with. She had no limiting beliefs about her abilities or her rights, she only had chutzpah and attitude.
Little Abe was lucky to be born a chick- en. As people, we get bound up in false beliefs about ourselves; we let others tell us who we are and how we fit into our groups and into society as a whole. We buy into collective “knowledge” about how we should age and how hard it needs to be to earn a living. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a reset button and start fresh like little Abe?
Click here for the rest of Chapter 4
Sharon Roy - Relationship/recovery coach and speaker who delights in sharing life’s blessings and lessons. She lives, loves, learns and writes on her farm in Connecticut.
www.Succeedhappily.com
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