Of Mice and Men

I found a picture of me playing standing behind one of those wooden cutouts painted as a mouse. It got me thinking how often we as humans, act like mice.

Mice lead a simple life, scavenging for food and keeping warm in a little hole they cut themselves. But, it is a life of constant fear. Tiny mice have the disadvantage of having most of the world towering above them. Even though mice are tiny compared to us humans, we are the ones running from them. Why?

One can understand why a mouse would be scared of a 150 lb person, but why are we scared of them? It’s because of how the mice react to our presence. Mice run and hide as a result from their fear. What if mice changed their behavior to act more like cats? Instead of running from us with their golden nugget of crumbs, they come softly to our feet, nuzzle, and use those oddly-enormous eyes to romance us? Would we then be more caring and loving to the mice? We are the hand that feeds and have the potential to feed abundantly versus scraps.

How many times do you act like a mouse? Instead of being playful and nuzzling the person who has the power to give you abundance things, you run in defense. We are so scared of being trampled on by the person we perceive as bigger and scarier that we never nuzzle them.

Sure, there will be people you nuzzle and they will still swat a broom at you, but for each one non-responsive person, there are caring ones too. If we live our lives acting like mice all the time, we never give the opportunity to someone to give us what we need. It’s the unknown opportunity of possible getting fed in abundance versus living off scraps. You’ll never know if an abundance offering awaits if you don’t get the courage to try.