There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.
R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER
Can you state with certainty that you know whom you will evolve into? Or for that matter, what? Presumably, none of us can. Think way back to your earliest age response to what you said you were going to be, “when you grow up.”
I was (for sure) going to be an astronaut. I still haven’t lost my desire to go into outer space, and I still very much hope that I will travel there in short order, but it is most certainly not my career path.
The astounding metamorphosis of the caterpillar into the butterfly cannot be forecast without hindsight knowledge. Surely the caterpillar is (most likely) unaware that its future is so disparate from its past.
Such are we, as we progress in time. We have our moments that feel as defining as any one moment might appear. In those moments, we may feel as if our destiny has been attained. Perhaps if those moments are far too numerous and frequent, then the perspective of where else you may still be headed could potentially cloud in favor of where you believe you already are.
Perhaps, then, the proper perspective might be that we are better served always wondering if there is a butterfly in our future. Never putting life off, anticipating that a butterfly’s journey must be in the cards, living each moment to our fullest. And, perhaps that mindset is the value system that not only generates such an outcome but is also the fuel to attract so many other possibilities to oneself as to generate the transformative events that give cause to a metamorphosis of this magnitude.
Of interest to me, then, was whether or not the butterfly has resonance of being a caterpillar? Does that information disappear during the evolution of the being? Or does it improve as it transcends?
I think the important message in the allegory is that none of us know what type of butterfly awaits us in our future. However if we are aware that there is such a possibility, we are that much more likely to have an evolution that will transform us into something even more majestic.
Happy Thursday!
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