Water Rat received an email and noticed at the end of the correspondence it read - “Please do not hesitate contacting me for further information….” Hmm, hesitate! Why hesitate? Have you heard about the plight of the hesitating messenger pigeon? Legend has it, after he stopped hesitating; he was free to fly and continues to inspire people to live, without hesitation…

Growing up he was educated to believe a day in the sky was a pigeon’s dream come true. He had bigger aspirations and believed there was no limit to the sky as often expressed by his teachers. Hesitant by nature, he wasted many opportunities to fly by continual thinking.

He felt trapped and limited beneath the corrigated iron roof that was holding him back. Everyday as the door opened, he waved another feathered friend farewell and offered wishes of a safe journey. By not diving in head first, he became terribly frustrated, disorientated and found great difficulty in believing he would ever be chosen as the carrier.

Among the yawns, gaggles and spaggles that roared through the coop each morning, the sound of whistles blew as the trainers inspired the flock to their pigeon toes to stretch before peckfast. Sunrise marked the beginning of what he likened to be an ugly featherweight bout that would reveal the daily champ, the fittest and hungriest to rocket through the sky.

Preparation, teamwork and strategy generally gave the underdogs a fighting chance to find the lower ground. Pushing, bullying and trickery usually meant feathers were in a flap and last minute dirty tactics employed. With all his might he blurted that peckfast had become a seedy way of life, ruffling the feathers of the trainers who promptly ordered him to cease beaking his mind.
The trainers reminded him that he only had himself to blame for his unwillingness to stick his neck out to rise to the ‘chosen one’ challenge. They tried to inspire him with the story about his own heroic great grandfather who, without hesitation, dared to fly above enemy lines during WWI. Without fear, his great grandfather slapped adversity in the face and flew directly into the blinding light of the piercing sun, weaving through a hail of deadly bullets to deliver the good news that the war was declared over.

The very next morning after peckfast he was shocked when the trainers nominated him as the ‘chosen one’. With employed strategy they prepared him for his flight and tied a message to his leg whilst instructing his navigation path to the doors of the Philosophical Society. The trainers warned him that he was not to read the enclosed message or he would never again fly
the coop.

He landed at the Philosophical Society and like always, hesitated, then flew away with the message still tied to his leg. He realised that if he had delivered the message he would need to also return the ‘received with thanks, please do not hesitate contacting me for more information’ correspondence back to the trainers and have to return to life inside the coop. He was unwilling to surrender his freedom. He fidgeted in a tree, reluctantly untied the message and deliberated for hours whether to read it or not. He eventually did…
Congratulations!! Farewell to your days of hesitation…….Take hold of your heart and live the freedom you have created
...message delivered!