In his book, A Complaint Free World, Revised and Updated: Stop Complaining, Start Living, ordained minister and best-selling author, Will Bowen compares the frigatebird and the seagull bird in relationship to how we handle life situations. He writes:
The Frigatebird
The frigate is an interesting and majestic bird. Large, black, and sleek, with a six-foot wingspan, a frigate looks like the shadow of a glider plane floating lazily over the bay. The frigate bird lives its entire life in the sky, even sleeping in the air, and yet it rarely moves. Occasionally you may see just the tips of the bird’s long slender wings bend up or down ever so slightly, allowing the frigate bird to rise and fall on invisible currents of wind.
The frigate bird rarely lands except to mate. Otherwise, it sails effortlessly across the heavens, rising and falling on streams of air, sensing the atmospheric changes and gliding along with whatever the sky presents. It does not resist, it simply goes with the flow, and as a result expends little energy living quiet, calm, high, and free.
Seagulls
Seagulls, on the other hand, are loud, squawking birds that zip to and fro on their short, stubby wings, fighting the air currents rather than gliding along with them. Seagulls are the garbage collectors of the sea, picking up anything they can find to eat, while also swooping down from time to time to catch small fish near the water’s surface.
Seagulls often fight one another for limited resources, whether it’s a scrap of food or a spot to rest atop a navigational buoy. And they make a constant racket. Their complaining wail can be heard from hundreds of yards away as they shriek and cry.
The seagull is the opposite of the frigate bird. The seagull struggles to survive, whereas the frigate just soars above it all.
By the way, you may wonder how the frigate bird gets its food if it never lands. The answer is that the frigate soars along and when it sees a flock of gulls catching some tasty fish, it folds its long, sleek wings against its body, points its sharp beak toward a seagull that’s managed to find something yummy, and dives like a missile straight toward the gull.
The seagull may make a futile effort to avoid the frigate bird but will ultimately shriek and spit out whatever it’s carrying. The frigate bird zips past the fleeing gull to snatch its falling food out of midair.
Seagulls, therefore, not only have to live like scavengers, but they often have to find twice the food they need to survive because they have to give half their catch to dive-bombing frigate birds.
Daily, life presents ever-changing currents just like the sky, sometimes taking you up and other times taking you down. But if you can remain calm and serene riding the streams of life like the frigate bird rather than fighting against them like the complaining seagull, you’ll live a much happier and more peaceful life.
All the best in your quest to get better. Don’t Settle: Live with Passion.
