The Metaphor

Ant

Without my movement, my queen will lose a valuable worker. My family will lose a precious helper. My team will lose a dedicated leader. I am always moving, from searching for the tiniest hints of food to lifting enormous morsels to bring back home to my queen.

Sometimes it is difficult to stop myself from admiring the queen. She has become so important that she doesn't need to move; she has others do the moving for her. Occasionally, I'll find myself dazing off, imagining all the things I could do with her power. I could start a nonprofit for saving injured ants. I could negotiate with the queen of the enemy colony to end the war. I could invent a tracker to see where all of our workers are. But then I remember that when I become more knowledgeable, there will be a time for big ideas. For now I need to focus on my goal: for my team to be the most productive of all the ant teams.

Every night I spend several hours glued in front of a computer screen, scouting for potential places to search for food the next day. Trying to balance risk and reward is so difficult; there are times I wish my teammates would help me more, but the team knows that I am the best at the job. Secretly, I love doing extra work for the team, though it means I may make mistakes along the way. Once I suggested the local Chinese restaurant dumpster. Though there was a lot of food like I had predicted, it was trash day. I was on the sidewalk trying to lift a cashew when I heard the piercing noise every ant dreads to hear. "EIERKKKK!" The battle cry of the garbage truck. Some of history's toughest ants have been lost looking for food in the dumpster; they were taken prisoner by the garbage truck and driven to faraway lands. Luckily, that day none of my troops were lost. The behemoth passed with no captives, but I felt as if my entire team had just died and it was my fault. Though my team supported me and tried to take some responsibility, I knew that I had own up to my mistake. From then on, I always checked the garbage schedule and my team always confirms information about our location.

Currently, we are heading back from City Park. Imagine carrying something thirty times your weight on your back. Even for an ant, it's hard work, but it's nice to be supported by ants all around me. I call our current formation "The Cloud". It's effective because we can easily talk amongst ourselves and easily help each other should one of us collapse from the weight. While I'm surrounded by my friends in all directions, I don't think it's fair to call them friends. They are essentially family. We are moving all as one, each leading the entire group. We are moving towards a vision. My vision.

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