Lessons to Learn from The Ants and Its Colony

Ants may be seen as an insect, inferior to human in body size and weight. They sometime come to our homes as invaders, and most times we just can’t watch and squish them.

This morning, I was thinking about the power and influence of unselfish togetherness, and then I remembered the ants. How united they are in accomplishing a goal. Not only did I find that they are united, I also found out so many life lessons we human can learn from them.

Don’t ever give up. Be persistent

Ants are known for not giving up; they are relentless in the pursuit of their goal. When they meet an obstacle (Objects, Rocks etc), they don’t complain and sit down in self pity. Instead, they find a way over or around the obstacles and keep moving till they reach their final destination. Napoleon said, "Victory belongs to be persistent"

Ask for help, if the burden is too heavy.

Ants in their small sizes often carry food or task that is many times bigger than their sizes. An ant knows it limit. It doesn’t get itself exhausted. When a lone ant finds a food or task to carry out, it signals to other ants and they come in an unselfish unity to accomplish that task.

The ant doesn’t see itself as the boss, because he found the food. They are selfless

If we human can see life from that perspective, accomplishing our goal won’t be that an impossible task. But we human often belittle the contribution of others in accomplishing our goal just because we are the brain to the idea.

Discipline.

The ants march one after the other in line, without accident and dispute. They are not divided like man who craves for division because of selfish gain than unity.

Ants are well discipline; you can see it when an ant or ants carrying an object, the ant without a load make way for those with load. They don’t over-help each other.

Well-organized.

In an Ant Colony they have the Queen(s), workers and males. Everyone is important, each doing different job. There is a decentralized structure, division of labour, no rules and no boss. Despite no rules and no boss, nothing is left undone in their colony.

Planning and Acting in time.

Good planning and thinking doesn’t come by the size of one’s head nor does looking ahead come by a bigger eye.  Ant plans, they think summer in winter, and winter in summer. They recognize seasons, and they don’t get fooled by season of plenty. They plan and act in time, by harvesting in times of plenty and storing, because they know there will be season of lack. If only, all humans plan and act in time.

Art of sharing.

Ants are selfless; they share among themselves everything they get. They send message to others, because they are so much interested in each others. That is the opposite of some human being, when they find something that could change the lives of others or help someone; they want to hoard it to themselves and make it unreachable to others.

Hard work and Determination

Their art of hardworking and determination is being noted by the sizes of objects and foods they carry, the task they do. They don’t concentrate on how big the object is rather their pleasure is in the gain they will enjoy when it gets to their colony.

It will do a lot of good if we human don’t put so much attention on the size of our task, goal or vision, but to put more focus on the possibility of accomplishing it and the joy it will bring.

Get Busy

Ants are always busy, but they are not busy doing nothing rather they are busy doing something. Henry David Thoreau said: "It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is; what are we busy about? Unlike Many Individuals busy doing nothing.

We can incorporate all of these characters and lessons from the Ant into our individual lives, family and organisation. I believe it will help make our lives better and our community a better place to live in.

Thanks for reading.