Don't Feed the Geese

This post was inspired by an incident the occurred on a recent bike ride. While cruising by the pond in town on my way home, I spotted a grandmother with her granddaughter feeding the many geese that pollute the water and ground, despite the multiple signs asking that this not be done. I slowed down and politely asked her to please not feed the geese as we don’t want to attract them - feed the ducks instead. She got angry and told me to “just hush” – like I said, a grandmother.

Thanks to people like her we have seen the population of geese grow each year to the point that the road along the pond is so full of goose droppings that you can’t ride a bike or walk on it without hitting a pile. The lawns within 2 blocks of the pond are also full of goose droppings. Yet for some reason, people like this grandmother insist on making it worse.

There are several ducks that call the pond home and I am all for feeding them and attracting more. They are much cleaner than the geese, are not aggressive (as geese can be), and don’t take over like geese do. Perhaps with more ducks, the pond would not be so desirable for the geese. That would be a win – win as there would be plenty of ducks to watch and feed, and a lot less goose poop, making the area much more enjoyable for everyone.

The above is a long setup for the metaphor in the parable below that this incident reminded me of:

“An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”

He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.””

In my case I am equating the geese with the evil wolf and the ducks with the good wolf. For those of you not familiar with the mess that Canada geese leave wherever they go, visit a pond or athletic field they have taken over. You’ll get it pretty quickly, likely on the bottom of your shoe. Long before the Canada geese invasion, many of us remember feeding the ducks at the local pond or zoo as kids. They always seemed so happy scooting across the water or waddling amusingly around us picking up the stale bread we threw and quacking up a storm.

My question for you is which will you feed in yourself, the geese or the ducks? It’s a choice we all make every day, and it’s not always easy as we navigate through life’s ups and downs. Nourishing the good in ourselves and starving the bad requires effort, but the benefits to self and others far outweigh that effort. Go ahead and feed the ducks, the world will be a better place for it.