The Bird behaviour

 

I happened to watch two birds with different feeding behaviours !

The King fisher kept its prey between its bills for a long time and I could not get a picture of it after swallowing the feed as I longer could wait to watch that. 

The Asian Bee eater had its prey between its bill only for a short time and swallowed it as soon as it fetched the prey. 

The delayed gratification and instant gratification!

I see it in children too. A three year old boy when given a toffee put it in his short pocket and another child uncovered the wrapper and put it in his mouth. 

It is not wise to make big assumptions about either of this behaviour except to say that those who study emotional intelligence would suggest that those who can delay the gratification are better poised to be in charge of their situations rather than be carried away by situations to rule over them.

The boy who put the toffee in his pocket chose what to do where as the boy who instantly consumed it was probably enticed by the toffee. 

I struggle with this situation myself. I feel controlled by the circumstances and take a long time when something difficult would come upon me. A recent event took me through a difficult journey of overcoming the circumstancial pressure for almost a week!

We live with expectations and a belief system of hoping for reasonable behaviour from others. When an unreasonable behaviour is what we encounter, we might feel carried away by disappointment. 

The unreasonable behaviour might evoke memories of disappointments which them become a larger conglomerate than the one event which needed attention. 

I remember a caution a professor under whom I was training told me at the end of the training: 'When you come across a difficult situation, approach it without carrying the baggage of the past in to that situation'! 

How true and yet how difficult it is !

To live by responding to hurts with kindness and forgiveness is the desirable adult behaviour! I keep that as my destination in my social behaviour!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)