Everything I Know About Life, I Learned from a Hummingbird

I’ve spent a lot of time in the desert with a camera in my hand. Long enough to know that the Southwest will teach you a few things if you slow downand pay attention.

Funny thing is, one of the best teachers I’ve ever had weighs less than a nickel.

A hummingbird.

Now I didn’t head out one morning thinking I’d be getting life advice from something smaller than a poker chip. I was just hoping for a decent photograph. But when you stand still long enough and watch one of those little feathered rockets work the desert flowers, you start noticing something.

That bird has life figured out better than most people.

Lesson #1: Go Where the Sweet Things Are

A hummingbird doesn’t waste time arguing with an empty flower.

If there’s no nectar, it moves on. No drama. No complaining. No standing around wondering why life isn’t fair.

It just finds the next bloom.

That’s a pretty solid life strategy if you ask me. Too many folks spend their days stuck on things that ran dry years ago. Jobs, grudges, bad luck, broken plans.

Meanwhile the hummingbird is already three flowers down the trail.

Sometimes the best thing you can do in life is tip your hat, leave the empty flower behind, and head for the next one.

Lesson #2: Keep Moving

If you’ve ever watched a hummingbird up close, you know they don’t exactly believe in sitting still.

Their wings beat up to 80 times a second. That little bird burns energy like a campfire in a windstorm. If it stops moving for too long, it doesn’t make it.

Life works a lot like that.

You don’t have to be the fastest rider in the county, but you do have to keep riding. Progress doesn’t always look dramatic. Sometimes it’s just one small step forward.

But motion keeps things alive.

Dreams. Businesses. Art. Photography. Even your spirit.

Standing still too long has a way of draining a person quicker than a long ride through the Sonoran sun.

Lesson #3: Even the Hardest Workers Know When to Rest

Now here’s the part most people don’t know.

At night, hummingbirds go into something called torpor. Their metabolism slows way down. Their body temperature drops. It’s basically their way of shutting the engine off after a long day of flying full throttle.

Nature’s version of turning down the lantern and letting the fire burn low.

That’s a lesson most of us could stand to learn.

We live in a world that celebrates grinding yourself into dust. But the hummingbird knows something important:

Rest isn’t weakness.

Rest is how you survive the long ride.

Lesson #4: Size Doesn’t Decide What’s Possible

Here’s the part that really sticks with me.

A hummingbird weighs less than a nickel. Yet some of them migrate thousands of miles every year.

Thousands.

Think about that for a minute.

That tiny little bird crossing deserts, mountains, and oceans like it’s just another day on the trail.

It’s a reminder that the world has a bad habit of underestimating small things. Small towns. Small businesses. Quiet people. Big dreams that don’t look impressive to outsiders.

But the hummingbird doesn’t ask permission to do something extraordinary.

It just flies.

Final Thoughts from the Rusty Shutter

So yeah, it might sound a little strange to say a hummingbird taught me a few things about life.

But out here in the desert, wisdom doesn’t always come from books or speeches or men in expensive suits. Sometimes it comes from watching the world do what it’s always done.

A little bird chasing sweetness through the desert air.

If you pay attention long enough, you’ll see the lessons too:

Go where the good things are.
Keep moving forward.
Rest when the day is done.
And never let your size or your doubts decide what you’re capable of.

Not bad advice from a bird that could sit comfortably on a silver dollar and still have room to spare.

—

John A. Smith
John A. Smith Photography
Stories from the trail and the lens at the Rusty Shutter Saloon