The Lark and Her Young Ones

The Lark and Her Young Ones is an old tale from Aesop’s Fables. Give it a quick read below, and then I have a few thoughts to share afterward.

Some larks had a nest in a field of grain. One evening the old larks coming home found the young ones in great terror. “We must leave our nest at once,” they cried. Then they related how they had heard the farmer say that he must get his neighbors to come the next day and help him reap his field. “Oh,” cried the old birds, “if that is all, we may rest quietly in our nest.”

The next evening the young birds were found again in a state of terror. The farmer, it seems, was very angry because his neighbors had not come, and had said that he should get his relatives to come the next day to help him. The old birds took the news easily, and said there was nothing to fear yet.

The next evening the young birds were quite cheerful. “Have you heard nothing today?” asked the old ones. “Nothing important,” answered the young. “It is only that the farmer was angry because his relatives also failed him, and he said to his sons, ‘Since neither our relatives nor our neighbors will help us, we must take hold tomorrow and do it ourselves.’”

The old birds were excited this time. They said, “We must leave our nest tonight. When a man decides to do a thing for himself, and to do it at once, you may be pretty sure that it will be done.”

I wanted to share this fable with you because it ties directly back to my post from a few days ago about ways to get more out of life. Each of the instances I listed in that post has a common thread running through them, and that is the fact that they are all things you have to do for yourself. No one is going to do those things for you.

Maybe not all of those ways I listed are for you. But even if you are picking and choosing from that list what advice to follow, you’ll never succeed with them if you do not resolve yourself to see them through. And that’s the point that Aesop was also trying to get across. Once a man sets himself to something, you can bet he’ll follow through on it.

Reading the advice from the Ways to Get More Out of Life post will only take you so far. Believing in it, and setting yourself to follow through on that advice is the only way you’ll reach that goal. Your mom isn’t going to do it for you. Your friends aren’t going to do it for you. Only you can succeed at it, and that’s only if you commit yourself to it.

- Mick