What I Learned From A Parakeet

I want to tell you about the lesson that I learned from my parakeet.
Yes, I did say that I learned something from a parakeet. I suppose that
it is possible that I have too much time on my hands. Moving on...

My parakeet is named Yazzie. Yazzie is Navajo for small or little. Yazzie is just your average parakeet, she spends her day eating, cruising around her cage, and playing with her bell. This past week, Yazzie's bell broke, and she was fairly miffed about it. So, like the good parakeet pal that I am, I went to the pet store for a new one.

While I was looking at the bird toys, I also decided to get Yazzie a mirror with beads on it. My Mother had a parakeet that loved its mirror, and I thought about what a fine parakeet pal I would be to buy one for Yazzie.

So I took the new bell and the mirror home and put them in her cage, expecting to be rewarded for my generosity with a happy parakeet.

Wrong.

Yazzie was not a happy budgie! She was really afraid of that mirror.
She felt that I had put another bird into her cage, and she was really afraid of the newcomer. For the first 12 hours, she cowered as far away from that mirror as she could. For the next 24 hours, she stayed away from it, but squawked and hissed and just generally tried to let that strange thing know who was boss in that cage. I started to think about removing the mirror, but my husband told me to wait and see what happened in another day or so.

Well, yesterday Yazzie finally got up her courage and went over. Now, she loves the thing! She plays and plays with it, and the bell is virtually forgotten. What did I learn, you ask, other than that it pays to give the average parakeet time to adjust to something new? I learned that we are all pretty much like Yazzie when it comes to something new in our lives. We can easily get nervous and let fear take over.

Instead of just strolling right up and checking the new thing in our lives out, many times we will hang back, try to ignore it or get angry and try to let it know who is boss. And I think that lots of humans would not be as brave as Yazzie and overcome a new challenge within 48 hours.

So, the next time a challenge comes up in your life, why not ask yourself if you aren't braver than a little parakeet, stroll right on up to it and look it squarely in the eye. You may find out, like Yazzie did, that it is just a mirror, and nothing to be afraid of.