Tweet Softly & Believe

With Friday morning’s global tech outage, I took time to enjoy one of the balmiest July mornings ever to fall upon Missouri, to walk to the center of town for coffee.

Once at the coffee shop, I sat at an outdoor café table and mentally tumbled through current life challenges. I watched four or five birds with soft feathers, appearing to be just past fledgling-hood, taking on the challenge of early adulthood to pursue their purpose and build nests. Several picked up small sticks or pieces of seed fluff and flew off.

Then one delicate but self-assured mama picked up a stick three times as long as herself and flew off. Like Mary Kay’s bumblebee, I don’t think this little lady had any idea she shouldn’t be able to fly while carrying such a big burden.

As I walked home, I called and shared the story of this ladybird’s determination with my bff, who quickly captioned the image through my mobile phone: “Now, THAT’s a ‘can-do’ attitude!”

We typically use the “big-stick” metaphor to indicate we’re taking no prisoners – that we’re going through life wielding power... but we don't have to wield power to get things done. How nice to have a build-something-new twist on the big stick metaphor! So from now on, no matter how big a challenge to carry, I will optimistically declare:

“I tweet softly and carry a big stick!”?