A barn swallow can make a home using a variety of tools. Mud, sticks, twigs and leaves are patched together to form a safe space. It becomes one place instead of four different things. Once all the tools are used together, the swallow has a new creation. It once started out as an empty space against the side of a barn. The leaves scattered the ground and the twigs cracked in two as people and animals trod on them. As individual things, those tools appear useless, let alone helpful for the formation of a nest. However, when the swallow combines all the items, the side of a barn ceases to be just that.
As we start a new year, it is easy to be caught up in the “new year, new me” statement and promise. We set lofty goals for ourselves like: hit the gym more, start volunteering weekly, contact mom and dad or call instead of text. These are all commendable ideas, but the pressure we put on ourselves to form a new person can lead to failure. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It just means that we cannot humanly complete the list we make on January 1st.
It’s not about creating a new personality or “starting over”. You will fail if you tell yourself that this is what the New Year means. A new beginning is about using the tools that currently surround us to add on to what we have already built in new and creative ways. Just as a swallow makes one object by combining four completely different things, we also must add on to the structure that already exists.
A swallow doesn’t try to put sticks and mud together on nothing but air. It has a base, a foundation to build off of. It utilizes a structure that already exists. Each New Year that comes and goes adds to a foundation. Instead of trying to force new habits, why not add on and improve on the existing lifestyle? Maybe choose one completely new tradition, but any more than that and you risk overwhelming yourself and quitting the gym or volunteer program within two weeks.
We are like a swallow and the barn is like our personality or souls. Every year, even every day, we add something new to whom we choose to be. We cannot patch together our personality with just sticks or with easily scattered leaves. We are far too unique and diverse for that. But if you take a little mud and glue leaves and twigs together then not only does it stick, but also three different elements are working together. They won’t stay together in thin air. The clump will fall apart and hit the ground. However, if you stick the cluster of leaves, twigs and mud onto a barn, they will stay.
Some leaves will be blown away by the wind, just as we cannot continue every habit or activity. Sticks will fall on the dirt and be forgotten. Not everything will fit just right. But, the swallow keeps adding new twigs and leaves until a home begins to take shape.
Our personalities are our homes. If we treat the New Year right, we can become even more comfortable within ourselves. Challenges are great, but 12 months is a long time full of obstacles, laughter and new people. To accomplish and enjoy the year ahead, we must be able to provide our own strength. The only way to do that is by becoming more familiar with who we are.
We are all swallows collecting leaves and mud to patch together a framework that will provide a safe place for our continual growth and learning.