In 1898, two lions repeatedly raided the railroad workers building a bridge over the Tsavo River in Kenya. The advance of progress into the lions' territory had depleted the herds which they depended upon as their natural food source.
Facing starvation, the lions adapted. Are we more cunning than a herd of antelope or wildebeests? Could we protect ourselves in mass from stalking lions? The answer is no.
The lions became so adept at hunting man and disappearing back into the brush they were considered ghosts possessed by evil spirits. The greatest hunters in the world were frustrated time and again by the lions. It was only dumb luck that finally resulted in their deaths. This is an extreme example but raises a good question. If lions can adapt their natural instincts to outsmart man, can we adapt our own natural instinct to thrive in the real world?
As a species, man is a strange animal on this planet. We have altered our environment to suit our own needs. It goes without saying many humans have failed to adapt to the world they have created. People are homeless and starving. People are struggling to survive day to day. And we are killing each other on a mass scale as a result.
Failure to adapt leads to extinction for all creatures and we are no different. But it need not be this way. We have natural instincts that we rarely use as a result of having everything provided for us. Hindsight, conscience, and determination are our strongest natural instants and we require them for adaptation and survival. We may not consider these as natural instincts but they are.
After a year of working at my dead end job I found myself laid off again when the market plummeted. I had no seniority and was among the first to get the axe. I went against all three of my natural instincts which led to my fate. In hindsight, I realized I had become complacent at this job with no real determination to better myself. My conscience constantly haunted me. I knew I should have been working toward my personal goals. I dreaded waking up every morning to go to this job and the accumulated stress of this job literally affected my health. I was constantly fatigued and depressed. I would spend all of my off hours lying in bed as depression crept in.
Hindsight is like exam results. You get your paper back and see the problems you missed inked in red and the correct answers provided. You know you will see these problems again on the final. Instead of thinking of hindsight as a source of regret, I now think of it as a learning experience.
Conscience is something we only relate to our sense of morals. We know it's wrong to harm others. We know this not simply because it is written somewhere as a rule, but because feel it inside. When I was working at my dead end job I knew it felt wrong. It literally felt like the laws of time and space were altered by my presence there. Every minute felt like hours. At the end of every day it felt as if I had been robbed of a vital portion of my life. I knew with every fiber of my being that I was not meant to be there.
I came to a point where I no longer cared if bills got paid or if I even had groceries to eat. I plotted my escape as if it were a prison. I collapsed in the parking lot one afternoon after clocking out. I was literally ordered by my doctor to quit that job. Today, the mere scent of their food makes me physically ill. This is an example of the role conscience plays in our everyday lives. If you have a job like this you can relate. Imagine how animals we keep in captivity feel.
Determination is a valuable instinct and can be a positive or negative factor in our lives. For much of my life, I was determined to work myself into an early grave just to earn enough to survive. I was only making my employer wealthy with no real prospect of advancement for myself.
It was only when I directed my determination toward my personal goals did I begin to achieve success in my life. If I had to work for someone else, it was to learn from them what I needed to further my own goals. I used what little I earned from them to finance my personal business goals. If I had nothing of value to learn or profit from a potential job I wouldn't take it.
We often ask why the wealthy strive to get richer. It's because their wealth is a secondary asset to their goal. They are driven by determination to excel and cannot easily stop. The lions of Tsavo were in no way starving. They were raiding the railroad camps daily at their peak and sometimes twice a day. They had acquired a taste for their prey and were driven by their need to hunt.
Lions are predatory creatures driven by their instincts. Once we as humans find something we are passionate about we are no less driven to pursue it. We don't do it for the money.
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Previously Posted on FullofKnowlege.com
