The Most Dangerous Bees

This morning at the gym, as I was getting ready for work, I overheard a group of men chatting in the locker room. There were four of them, all in their late fifties to late sixties, and they were sharing “war stories” about what they had done, what they had accomplished, adventures they had experienced and what they used to be. It was a wake-up call for me. These men may have two or three more decades or more left on this planet and instead of looking forward, they were stuck celebrating the past.

Now, I don’t want to be too hard on these guys, maybe this is not typical of them. Maybe I just happened to catch them on a day when they were all reminiscing. But all too often, I find people to be perfectly content to have already fought their best fight, to have sung their best song, to have created their best art, and they are no longer striving to surpass what they have already accomplished. They are Used-To-Bees.

The problem with Used-To-Bees, as Les Brown would say, is that “Used-To-Bees don’t make no honey!” Used-To-Bees are stuck reliving the memory of what they have done in the past instead of making new, better honey. They are satisfied with what they were instead of striving to be what they could become.

I must never allow myself to become a Used-To-Bee. There will always be more and sweeter honey to produce and I hope and pray I never cease to improve what I create and share it with more people.

Whether you live to twenty-nine or ninety-two, life is too short to ever stop making the honey you were placed on this earth to create. A full grown adult will run from a single bee, a fraction of 1% of his or her own size, fearing the sting the tiny insect can inflict. However, the most dangerous and destructive bee of all is the Used-To-Bee: a bee that has lost its sting, its bite and most of all, its drive to create honey. Living in the rear view mirror must produce the most agonizing sting of all, a pain I hope you and I never have to experience.

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