"You've Changed."
Lifelong Caterpillars and Self-Sabotage
I love this meme, (which is saying something because I’m not a meme guy) because there’s levels to it.
On the surface, you could surmise the caterpillar is a tad put off, perhaps even resentful at the fact that the butterfly isn’t a caterpillar anymore.
On a deeper, more meaningful level, the caterpillar is conversing with its potential, represented beautifully by the butterfly.
This begs the question: why are caterpillar-like people, or Lifelong Caterpillars, if you will, so reluctant to change?
The traumas and dramas in their childhood were their personal realities that eventually, overtime, became their personalities.
In their minds they either explicitly or implicitly think or feel things like: I am unworthy…I am a loser…I am not good enough…I am miserable…
In a word, they’re victims. They’re Lifelong Caterpillars.
Lifelong Caterpillars are reluctant to change, so they self-sabotage before they ever do, or can, kind of like our cynical caterpillar friend in the meme above.
I was having coffee with a friend one morning back in May, 2023. He asked how I was doing. I told him I was anticipating what was next in my life. I was raring to go.
He laughed, then said: “My youngest (child) is really into bugs right now, so we got him a little bug house.”
I nodded, taking a sip of my coffee.
“My father-in-law sent us a box of caterpillars in the mail,” he said. “We got them yesterday. When we put them in the bug house, my youngest looked at me and said: ‘Okay. When do they turn into butterflies?’”
I smiled.
My friend said it’d take a couple weeks. He paused for a moment, then looked at me and said: “Most people think the hardest part of the caterpillar transforming into the butterfly is when it’s in its cocoon.” My friend shook his head, then continued: “It’s not. It’s when the caterpillar breaks out of the cocoon, as a butterfly, and it has to use limbs and wings it didn’t have before to do something it doesn’t know it can—fly. God’s getting you ready for something, Hunter, and there’s going to come a time when you’re going to have to use muscles you didn’t know you had to do something you’re not sure you can—fly.”
In the picture on the left, it was after hours, (maybe around 11 PM?) and I was writing my book—which comes out tomorrow—The Way: Out of Self-Sabotage; Into Self-Mastery which is how I was able to transform, like a caterpillar ought to, and fly.
My gift is writing, what’s yours? Singing? Dancing? Archery? Coaching?
This is a bold claim, but I believe it: if you, or someone you know, is a Lifelong Caterpillar, it’s because you’re not spending time with your gift.
Are you a writer who doesn’t write?
Are you a painter who doesn’t paint?
Are you a coach who isn’t coaching?
Or are you just flirting with your gift and falling in love with the ways of the world instead? (Money, women, success, notoriety, etc.)
To put it plainly, go all-in on your gift. And in the meantime, get a copy of my book to act as your guide throughout the process. And trust me, it is a process, it is not a quick fix. But as an old Chinese proverb reads: the best time to plant a tree was ten years ago. The second-best time to plant a tree is today.
So, go all-in, and whether you or someone you know finally does transform into a butterfly, so to speak, people are going to notice. They’re going to say: “You’ve changed.”
And you’re going to say: “We’re supposed to.”