When a monkey leaps from one tree to another, stretching out toward a branch, what do you think it trusts more—the leap, or the branch waiting for it?
Instinctively, we’d say the branch. If that branch snaps, the leap doesn’t matter. The fall could be fatal. The monkey’s survival depends on something external holding firm.
Now place a bird in a similar spot. When a bird settles on a branch, what is it really trusting—the branch beneath its feet, or the wings that brought it there?
It’s the wings. If the branch breaks, the bird doesn’t panic or plummet. It simply takes off. Its safety isn’t anchored to what it lands on, but to what it carries within itself.
That contrast has stayed with me.
Some of us move through life like the monkey—carefully calculating the strength of the branch before every jump. Jobs, people, plans, guarantees. We measure, double-check, and hesitate because the cost of a weak branch feels too high.
Others learn, slowly and often painfully, to live more like the bird. Not reckless, but resilient. Trusting skills earned, instincts sharpened, and the ability to recover if things collapse beneath us.
The lesson I’ve come to live by is simple, but not easy:
Trust what you’ve built within yourself. Everything else is uncertain.
Branches break. They always have. Wings, once grown, carry you away.