The Donkey That Kicked Twice (and the Bird That Got Nowhere Fast)

The Donkey That Kicked Twice (and the Bird That Got Nowhere Fast)

by Kateb Nuri-Alim Shunnar

Life has a way of humbling you over and over until you finally catch on to the lesson it’s been trying to hammer into your thick head.

Ask me how I know.

Truth is, I didn’t grow up in some village under an open sky, herding goats or sitting around fires swapping folklore.

No, my lessons came from life itself from city streets, quiet corners, broken dreams, and stubborn prayers.

But the wisdom?

It’s universal. Same no matter where you’re standing.

Sometimes, when I think about how life works, a certain picture always comes to mind one I made up a long time ago to explain how it feels when you keep bumping into the same wall.

I call it The Donkey That Kicked Twice.

Picture this:

You’re young, fired up, ready to take on the world.

You find something you think is going to carry you where you want to go a new job, a new relationship, a new idea.

You load it down with all your expectations, all your hopes, all your demands, and you set off, full speed ahead.

But halfway down the road, the thing you’re riding on the thing you trusted bucks.

Hard.

Knocks you flat on your back, knocks the wind clean out of you.

Now, you could sit there for a minute, catch your breath, maybe rethink a few things.

Maybe realize you’ve been asking too much of something too weak to carry you.

But most of us?

We get up mad. We get up prideful.

We dust ourselves off and shout, “I’ll show you!”

And we double the load.

We cling even tighter.

We push even harder.

And sure enough halfway down that same dusty stretch

BAM!

Another kick.

Another fall.

Another bruise.

Life’s funny like that.

It’s patient.

It'll let you run the same loop a thousand times if that’s what it takes.

Because real growth doesn’t happen when you get tired of falling it happens when you finally stop asking the wrong things to carry you.

Another image that always stuck with me is something I call The Bird That Got Nowhere Fast.

There’s this bird bright and fast and full of big dreams who decides he’s gonna fly to paradise.

He flaps those wings like he’s on fire, puts everything he’s got into it.

Day after day, he pushes himself to the limit.

But every night, guess where he lands?

Right back in the same old worn-out tree he started from.

He’s exhausted, frustrated, half-plucked from the stress of it.

Until finally, someone on the ground maybe a slow-moving turtle or some wise old soul hollers up and says,

"Hey, maybe it’s not how fast you’re flying that’s the problem. Maybe it’s that you’re flying in circles."

And man, if that didn’t hit me square between the eyes the first time I really thought about it.

I spent a good chunk of my life chasing the same outcomes with different names.

Different city. Same loneliness.

Different job. Same emptiness.

Different faces. Same lessons.

I prayed for change, sure.

But deep down, I was dragging around the same heavy baggage fear, pride, impatience like a ball and chain I wasn’t willing to set down.

I wanted new results without a new heart.

I wanted new horizons without a new mindset.

And life, like the faithful teacher it is, kept sending me back to the same starting line until I was finally ready to let go.

I had to learn that you don’t move forward just because you’re tired of being stuck.

You move forward when you get the message life’s been whispering or shouting all along.

So if you find yourself back in the same place, feeling like you’re reliving the same frustration, the same heartbreak, the same dead-end cycle don’t blame the donkey.

Don’t curse the wind.

And don’t think the universe is out to get you.

Ask yourself:

"What is life trying to teach me that I’m still refusing to learn?"

Because until you face it, until you surrender to the deeper work happening inside you, you’ll keep getting kicked down the same trail.

You’ll keep flying in circles, wondering why you’re not getting anywhere new.

Growth doesn’t come easy.

It doesn’t come quick.

And it sure doesn’t come cheap.

But it comes.

When you stop fighting the lessons and start letting them carve something deeper, something stronger, something freer in you.

And when that happens?

Well that’s when the road stops kicking you around and starts rising up under your feet.

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