The Ant and the Rubber Tree Plant
Barty the ant finished up the night shift, picked up his scythe and clocked out. Life on the farm was hard work and really didn’t give him much time to himself, but he was an ant and that’s what ants did so it was okay.
It was turning into a fine summer morning. Barty showered under the dew of a dandelion petal, took in a deep gulp of fresh air and wondered what to do about breakfast. He remembered seeing a discarded Coke can the night before, but decided he didn’t want anything that would make him too gassy.
He continued along a narrow trail that no one seemed to use anymore. As ants are naturally efficient, most chose the superhighways that led straight to and from the colony. But not Barty; Barty liked to wander. The trail was overgrown and a tight squeeze, even for an ant, but Barty didn’t mind a bit.
The strangest thing happened about halfway down the trail: it opened up to a long line of insects, some of which he’d never seen before, stopped in front of a giant rubber tree plant.
“Hey,” Barty said to one of the beetles, “what’s going on?”
“The rubber tree plant won’t let anyone pass. It was okay at first when it was still growing, we’d all just crawl through the leaves, but it’s too strong now. I’ve been stuck here for two days.”
“Wow,” Barty said. “I don’t have that much time. I have to find something to eat and get back to work.”
“Some human dropped a carnival-sized sucker up there a ways,” the beetle said, pointing towards the rubber tree. “Should be good eating for all of us if we could ever get there.”
“Thanks. I’ll go check it out,” Barty said as he made his way towards the front of the line.
A caterpillar in a football helmet was giving himself a pep talk when Barty arrived. “All right men, we’ve seen bigger than this before. Can you smell it? The raspberry? I love the smell of raspberry in the morning. All right, on three. One, two, GO, GO, GO!”
“Is that all you’ve got,” said the rubber tree plant. “My grandmother can push harder than that, and she’s got roots. HA, HA, HA.”
“Aw, c’mon fellas, this plant won’t budge. Let’s go home.” The caterpillar removed his helmet and shuffled off, his dejected legs following a close second.
A cricket stepped up next. “I’ve been studying the situation and know just what to do. My music will calm this angry beast so that I can walk through unimpeded.”
The cricket began rubbing his legs together and for a moment the rubber tree plant was silent. Suddenly, “Argh,” it said, covering what could have been its ears. “Beethoven? What kind of a moron picks Beethoven? It’s Brahms, you idiot! Get out of my sight.”
The cricket made a few sniffling noises before heading back to the entrance.
A grasshopper sprang to the head of the line, bouncing up and down as it taunted the rubber tree plant. “You’re no match for me. All I have to do is jump…” The rubber tree plant slapped the grasshopper out of the air and sneered as he lay crumpled in the dirt.
“That was mean,” the grasshopper said, limping his way to the back of the line.
“There, that does it,” came a voice through the weeds.
“What,” the rubber tree plant said, angling to get a better look behind him.
Barty, scythe strapped to his back, ambled through the new path he’d cut around the rubber tree plant and called out, “Hey everybody, I’ve seen the sucker. It’s beautiful: fairytale beautiful. Hurry, before someone turns on the sprinklers.”
An excited line of Class Insecta representatives meandered down the new path to get to the mythical sucker. The rubber tree plant was all but forgotten. A faint, “What do I do now,” was lost upon the breeze.
Anyone want to guess the point of this story?
Uh, always carry a scythe?
Don’t let foliage push you around?
It’s okay to cut in line?
All excellent attempts, but no. Why don’t you all sit down and I’ll tell you? Barty was brought out to illustrate something called “mental toughness.” (I said “sit down.”) It’s a nebulous term, seems to have a myriad of definitions, but it’s a good thing to have so I’ll define it as it may apply to writers:
Mental toughness is the ability to rebound in the face of obstacles and pesky delays so that you may continue on your way forward in life. It’s all about self-control; the kind of control you exercise over your own thoughts and actions. This is what shapes your present and future.
So what did Barty do that was so amazing, cut a trail? Anyone could have done that.
Yes, an excellent point- that option was always there for anyone to use, but Barty was the only one to employ it. While the other three approached the problem by squaring up to it head on and getting beaten physically and emotionally, Barty took the formidable presence of the rubber tree plant out of the equation and only considered how to get from A to B. That’s the beauty of mental toughness: it keeps your head clear of distracting thoughts and emotions and helps you focus on the big picture.
Let’s say you’re in the query stage of the writing process, on that endless search to acquire an agent. This is a notoriously long and tedious process that some would even call torture. Long periods of time spent alone with your own thoughts, with no positive nibbles of hope on the agenting horizon, can be an emotional roller coaster for which we all resent having to buy a ticket. Bad things can happen when you let your emotions get out of control, and let’s not forget the added bonus of negative chatter taking up residence inside your head. All those chants of, “No one’s ever going to want to read your book” and “You’re never going to make it; why do you even try?” This is not where you want to be. How can you expect to stay motivated and do what you need to do in order to succeed in this business if you allow yourself to listen to that crap? Focus is what you need.
Another thing that Barty did is direct his energy within. He didn’t consider what he’d have to do to change the rubber tree plant’s thoughts and actions because it was so much easier to just adapt himself. By doing that he was in complete control of the situation at all times. He didn’t waste energy arguing the injustice, pleading for special dispensation or name calling; he merely analyzed the situation, chose a reasonable solution and went to work. Barty took responsibility for himself and proactively chose a course of action rather than stand by helpless or give up altogether.
Yes, if only life were as straightforward as being confronted with a rubber tree plant. Well, it is and it isn’t; our perceptions of our problems have a lot to do with how complicated they really are. Let’s go back to the previous analogy of agent hunting. You’ve sent out forty queries and over the course of six months have been rejected by fifteen agents. You started out energized and hopeful, excited about things to come, but now, maybe sweatpants have become your new uniform, you don’t feel like checking your email anymore and you and Mrs. Butterworth have a new nightly ritual in front of the t.v. As much as you’d like to believe differently, you cannot control agents; you cannot make them love you. There are endless reasons why you may be getting rejected, but you can’t focus on that. You can only control yourself. You got rejected fifteen times? Next time send out a hundred queries and widen the net. Have there been consistent comments in the rejection letters, maybe something needs to be changed in your approach? These are things that you can do to help yourself, but there is a caveat. Sometimes, in spite of admirable effort and good intentions, you still won’t get what you want; at least not now. This is when resilience comes into play.
Look, if you want to get right down to it, mental toughness is an amalgamation of a bunch of different things: focus and resilience as I’ve said, persistence, courage in the face of the unknown and confidence. It all comes down to belief; what do you believe? If you keep telling yourself that bad things are going to happen, you’ll start to believe bad things will happen, which will reflect in your attitude and “poof” bad things happen. If however, you believe that your goal is attainable, really believe and adopt habits that reinforce that belief in your daily life, not only will your outlook improve, your demeanor will as well. It will be harder and harder to hear those little gremlins of negativity because homey don’t play that. Homey will be too busy picking himself up off the carpet and shouting, “That all you got, punk?” This is the essence of mental toughness.
By the way, keeping your sense of humor doesn’t hurt either.