What My Praying Mantis Is Teaching Me About Life

If you didn’t know, praying mantises eat their prey while it’s still alive. And they consume the entire thing. (If you’re not squeamish, take a quick look at a few YouTube videos). They’re terrifying and fascinating, and inspirational. Here’s what Dracarys, my pet praying mantis, is teaching me about life.

She waits silently for her prey.

We poured ten baby crickets into Dracarys’ cage today and she did nothing. She watched the spaz crickets run around without even the twitch of a leg or the turn of a head. She waited for a good half hour for her opportunity. She saw everything. And then, when two crickets ran close enough to her, she snatched them up and ate their heads.

If I could have the patience to wait silently for the perfect opportunity to cross my path, I think I would be in a much better place at this point in my life. I am often like a spastic cricket running as fast as I can, taking every subpar job offer and doing things I am not so excited about. Running, running, running. I think we all should do less running and more watching.

She eats things much bigger than her.

Dracarys ate a caterpillar the other day that was twice her size. She snatched it up and ate the whole dang thing. How? One bite at a time. She held the caterpillar the entire time and she crunched that sucker for a good hour or two. She was patient but ruthless in her pursuit of a dinner that was twice her size.

I realized that her caterpillar was really a metaphor for life. We humans can accomplish much more than we think we can if we are consistent. If we take one bite at a time out of our goals, we can consume or accomplish almost anything. As long as we don’t let go of the caterpillar. If we do, it will crawl away.

She gives no F’s.

When Dracarys swipes crickets up to begin her feast, the crickets often kick and squirm and put up a significant fight (obviously — I would too if something were eating my flesh). Dracarys cares not. She puts on her imaginary noise-canceling headphones and gets to work.

These days, everyone has an opinion. No matter what you do, people will always have an opinion about it. I vehemently encourage you to not be swayed in your quest by the ruckus of naysayers (and I hope I will do the same).

The takeaway

Like Dracarys, if we can choose to be still and observant, take one bite of life at a time when the opportunity arises, and give no F’s about naysayers, I think we’d be all the better for it.