Living Life by Design

In our quest for self-discipline, we would be wise to adopt a buffalo mentality.

When people think of Colorado, they often think of the world famous Rocky Mountains all over the western part of the state. Colorado is one of the only places in the world that has both buffalo and cows. When a storm approaches from the west, as storms almost always do out there, cows respond in a very predictable way. They know the storm is coming from the west, so they head east to try and outrun the storm.

The only problem is that, as you may know, caws are not real fast. Before long, the storm catches up to them…and cows, not knowing any better, keep running. Instead of outrunning the storm, they actually run with the storm, maximizing their exposure to it. Isn’t that stupid?

Many of us humans do this same thing every day!

What buffalo do, on the other hand, is truly unique. They wait for the storm to arrive, and when it does they turn and charge directly into the storm. By running at the storm, they run straight through it as the storm passes overhead, which minimizes the amount of pain they experience.

If only more of us would tackle life’s inevitable, unavoidable problems the way the buffalo do…head-on. Problems that are procrastinated on are only amplified, and we’re the ones who pay the price. There’s a great deal of strength in charging at our most challenging circumstances head-on.