This picture by Dave Irey sparked a cowboy’s imagination within seconds.
Immediately, I thought of how exciting it must have been for Dave to witness this battle of wills in the wild.
The next impression was even more potent. How often in the human kingdom do we get tangled up like this with other people? What might have started as a slight misunderstanding gets blown out of proportion and a friendship dissolves.
People, like these stubborn, turf obsessed mule deer, cannot seem to wriggle free from toxic entanglements because…….you got it……their egos are locked in battle mode. So how do these deer get free? Surely, they have to slow down and tamp down aggressive impulses or no solution can be reached.
The father estranged from a son or daughter must do the same or be in the grip of sleepless nights and irrational, critical thinking. In the land of the mule deer, something has to give. So too with family and friends…..someone has to eventually check their ego at the door with the realization that life is too short to keep knocking heads and remaining tangled.
Is there a friend or loved one that you are on the outs with?
Wouldn’t it be wiser to be proactive and seek a compromise to restore the relationship?
Would you not sleep more soundly if you abandoned the Cold War that is so harmful to everyone? Why wait until the Cold War has devolved into a deep freeze where no one wins?
Maybe Dave’s picture can be a paradigm buster to open minds to consider compromise instead of ego driven competition.
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