#489: Did My Tortoise Really Say That?

“Fibs” is my tortoise.
He knows how to survive tough times.

I found Fibs in my backyard while I was mowing the lawn. As I was pushing the electric mower across the yard, I came up to an odd-looking, dome-shaped, multi-toned, strange…“What in the world is THAT?”

“Is it a tree root?”

I stopped the mower.

“A tortoise!”

Reaching down and digging this runaway little guy out of the grass hole he had carved for himself was a flash of weirdness. Ask me 100 times what I thought it would be, and in no way would I have thought…“Tortoise.”

“Bizarre.”

The first time I picked him up, I could see Fibs had been on the run before he landed in my safe-zone sanctuary. A piece of his dirty shell near his left back leg had been chewed away…no doubt one of those nasty, unlucky days when a hungry animal found him and started gnawing.

The predator evidently had gotten tired after being unable to coax the tortoise out of his shell. Despite a seemingly vicious effort to eat him, Fibs survived.

Mr. Fibs comes from a long history of survivors. Having been on Earth for 55 million years, tortoises know a few things about “How to survive impossible times…and make it to tomorrow.”

Living through impossible times?
Doing my best to survive?
Trying to make it to tomorrow?

I’ve visited all three places.

Recently I picked Fibs up and held him at eye level. I looked into his mysteriously all-knowing and unblinking eyes. I asked him:

“What’s your secret to keeping going, wise little Fibs man?”

I studied him.

In his pay-close-attention-and-perhaps-you’ll-hear-me Zen-like way, he seemed to communicate.

1. Never give up.
2. Follow the success manual.
3. Keep out bad energy.

Are they really Fibs’ thoughts…or mine?
Maybe the two are one and the same.

After all…
We both know a few things about surviving tough times and impossible days.