This message is dedicated to one of my teachers
who really made a huge difference in my life:
THE GREAT Anné Linden
This story is from Anné’s book –
Mindworks . . .
Once on the west coast of Ireland there lived
a seagull whose name was Jake O’Shaunessy.
Jake was a healthy, handsome, and intelligent
seagull, but he was not able to fly.
When he was just a wee bird, Jake’s parents
and siblings had been lost in a severe storm
and he had no one to teach him.
He grew older and decided to try to learn by
himself. He watched other seagulls and
imitated them.
He ran along the ground and flapped his
wings and hopped up and down, trying to get
into the air, but nothing would happen,
and the young seagulls laughed at him because Jake looked so funny.
Some of the older seagulls tried to teach
him, but each one told Jake a different way of
learning to fly, and Jake tried to think of all
the ways each of the seagulls had told him:
“Flap your wings more, get your feet back,
head straight,” and all the other instructions.
He was thinking so hard about what everyone
had told him that he wasn’t able to get off the
ground. He began to believe something was
wrong with him, that he would never fly.
He tried going to the top of a cliff and jumping off, but he simply fell to the bottom. He went to a higher cliff, over the sea, closed his eyes, and jumped.
Again, he fell.
Other seagulls took pity on Jake and tried to take care of him. But this made him feel more discouraged than ever . . .
One day, a very old and wise seagull flew in to the western coast where Jake lived. He listened to Jake’s problem and told him to climb to the top of a special cliff, the highest and steepest one. On the top of this cliff he would find a large boulder, and on this boulder was written a secret message. This was the message Jake needed in order to fly, the wise bird told him.
No seagull had ever climbed such a steep cliff before. Jake had to tie starfish to his feet to help him with the suction. He climbed slowly, painfully, and finally reached the top. He saw the large boulder.
On it was written:
What you believe -- you can do!
Jake looked down from the dizzying cliff and was terrified, but he closed his eyes and jumped. He started to drop, and as he did, he remembered to say to himself, “I believe I can fly, I believe I can fly.” He was so busy saying it that he forgot to doubt himself.
Instead of paying attention to all the different things he’d been told to do, he just did it. And he found himself flying -- flying like any other seagull, with wings outstretched, gliding on the winds. It was the most wonderful moment of his life. He flew and dipped and never once wondered if he was doing it right. Far below on the sand, the other seagulls, who were watching him, heard him sing out, “I can fly! I believe!”
