Giving Up Those Pointless Battles

Every morning you can hear a “boink” on one of the back windows of the house. Every 15 seconds or so, another one. Then it begins to travel to another window. Boink. Boink. Boink. It’s a female cardinal. Time after time after time. Day after day. Upstairs windows, downstairs windows; the back of our house is almost all windows, so she has many choices. Boink. Boink. Boink. It’s been weeks, and she hasn’t learned yet and most likely is not going to learn to stop doing that. The battle continues. It’s pointless.

I’ve read the reasons why cardinals do this: a reflection of themselves or of the trees or shrubbery they’re on. Why she does it isn’t important—she’s still not getting into the house. And while she concentrates on attacking our windows, she’s not finding a nice male cardinal or building her nest. We’ve decided she’s not the smartest cardinal on the block, so maybe it’s better if she doesn’t reproduce.

Her day-after-day pointless battle raised a question in my mind. What are you doing day in, day out, that’s interfering with attaining the health you want? Starting every day with two pieces of toast with your eggs? Why not just one? Or try it with none? Are you walking at your usual window shopping pace? Why not try to increase the number of steps in the same time frame or get where you’re doing quicker by stepping up the pace? Always doing three sets of 15 repetitions? Why not raise the weight and drop to sets of 10 reps?

Or maybe it goes deeper. Are you fighting pointless battles just because you always have? Are they keeping you from doing what you truly need to do? What struggles could you walk away from?

You’re not a cardinal. You can change what you do to get better results. It may not require a whole lot more effort but unless you change things, you’ll keep getting the same results. Look at every one of your eating, exercise, and supplements habits. Look at where the conflicts are in your life. Where can you make changes that will get you better results?

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet