Today I spent a while watching a wasp on the windowsill.
I did not flee, which is the first thing we usually do. I stayed still, watching. And I saw something I did not expect: a tiny creature, extremely busy, going back and forth with an almost comical intensity. It checked every corner, vibrated its wings, stopped, decided, continued.
Two ideas about the wasp live in my head. The one I was taught, that it is dangerous and must be avoided. And the one I see when I stop to look, that it is just a form of life doing its thing, with no intention of bothering me.
Sometimes we do the same with people, with situations, with parts of ourselves. We label them before we know them. And we miss everything behind the first impression.
I am not saying we should hug wasps. I am saying there is a huge difference between the fear that protects and the fear that keeps us away for no reason.
Maybe today the wasp was teaching me something simpler: that there is beauty in almost everything if we stay long enough to look.