4 Life Lessons We Can Learn…from the Ant

The more we examine nature the more life lessons we can learn. Even the tiniest and most insignificant of beings has a lot to teach us via the way it acts and behaves. Let’s examine just what practical lessons the ant can teach us.

The Hardworking Ant

Ants are diligent workers. They never procrastinate, they are never lazy and their hard work sustains their lifestyle. A marvelous example of this is the carpenter ant who has to harvest food, then maintain and prepare that food in an underground granary. Then they care for their young and build on extra rooms to their homes as the colony expands. All of this they do without supervision or instruction.

Likewise, we today have to earn money for food, we have to maintain our homes, and care for our families. However, like the ant, we shouldn’t only do this when someone else is watching. If we can work hard whilst unsupervised we will reap the benefits and our families will too.

The Courageous Ant

No problem is insurmountable for the courageous ant. Their “can-do” attitude means that nothing is too big an obstacle for them to overcome and nothing is too big for them to handle. This kind of courage makes them natural self-starters without obvious limits and without excuses.

We too can be courageous. If a tiny little ant has that amount of confidence, how much should you have? Unfortunately, like the ant, we do have limitations. However, if we, like the courageous ant are willing to take things on with a positive “I can do it” attitude then we are much more likely to succeed in anything we do.

The Organized Ant

Ants are part of an organized colony. When something needs to get done, it’s taken on in an organized fashion. This even extends to long-term planning. Ants never go without food or shelter because they plan out their home and they store food when there is an abundance so that they have enough when food is scarce.  They even plan out and schedule their work vs rest periods so that none of them get too tired or burnt out.

What about us? Can we better manage our finances so that we have enough when work is scarce? Or what about our time? Can we better manage our work and rest so that we can avoid burnout? Certainly, these are things that we can put into practice.

The Cooperative Ant

No ant is a lone wolf. They are the epitome of team players who know the strength and benefits of working together. In fact, they can defeat enemies that massively outsize them just because they fight in unison. When it comes to work, they don’t compete, they don’t hold grudges or deny each other help. They are part of a cooperative team effort that completes the task together.

We can imitate their work ethic. Be a team player. It’s not about just what you do, but it’s about the overall outcome as a team. Help your colleagues, accept help from others and the end result will be much better than if you had just tried to do everything on your own.

-J.L. Newman

Photo by Egor Kamelev from Pexels