An ant on the move

Philosophy was one of my favorite subjects in university, and although it was difficult at times, I still thoroughly enjoyed the way it made me look at life. I suppose this is the point when it comes to philosophy or philosophical ideas, at least in my opinion, as you can’t help but somewhat turn into “The Thinker.”

Recently I found myself rather engrossed with a quote by Lao Tzu on an ant on the move. Lao Tzu is highly popular for The Art of War and often times it slips our mind that he was the founder of Taoism.

Taoism is basically about living a simple life. When we speak of an ant on the move, many things come to mind and such things are befitting life’s circumstances which often teach us to keep things simple.

The 21st century can be tough. Many of us think that being fast gets us ahead and sometimes being thorough is placed in the back seat.

An ant on the move reminds us that working on things with proper order makes us a master. Mastery of skill takes time and patience in our life stages whether it be personal or professional, all require a different type of mastery.

This is why even in the education sector we are pulling back and focusing more on honing one’s skill. Everyday is a different challenge making some days easy and some days hard, but the point is to never give up.

When difficulties arise, learning to pace ourselves further brings us closer to mastering a skill by mastering one’s self because it is important to be committed to the achievement of our goals instead of just simply being interested. 

Overconfidence starts the fall as my father always reminds me, and with so much advancement in technology and media, distractions can sweep away proper focus while blinding us on building better on ourselves.

An ant on the move is better than a dozing ox. This simply reminds us that, no matter how slow the process, no matter how frustrating, small steps are always better than dozing off or completely doing nothing. Our life’s accomplishments are not measured by who we know or how popular we are in society. Life’s accomplishments are about leaving a legacy.

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step as they say and taking that step daily gets us closer to our goals.