The Grasshopper Factor

Once upon a time there was an ant and a grasshopper.

The ant spent all day, everyday through the whole summer working to get ready for the winter. Stocking piling food and water and building a warm, comfy home so he and his little ant family would be safe and happy through the winter months.

The grasshopper, on the other hand, spent his summer having fun. The grasshopper sat by the river and played the fiddle. He danced and sang and generally partied down and whooped it up all summer long.

So when the snow started to fall, the ant holed himself up in his little ant house and spent all winter staying warm and catching up on his reading, presumably. While the grasshopper was stuck outside in the cold with no home and no food and he froze to death because he wasn't prepared.

It's a parable-- a story designed to teach a lesson. My grandmother used to tell it to me over and over again because, I guess, she was really hoping I would grow up to be an ant.

(Hang on, let me put down my fiddle.)

Many years and life lessons along the way, I have come to embrace the understanding that we each have a nature to us which we cannot change.

I cannot deny my grasshopper soul.

The best I can do is understand it, exploit its potential and mitigate its shortcomings, and make as many ant friends as I possibly can.

And that is where the blog title comes from, folks.