A soft chitter and frantic flutter caught my ear while I rested in the workshop.from the heat outdoors. It took me a moment to isolate the sound and identify a little bird, maybe a wren, pushing desperately against a nine-pane window near the roof line, above a set of double doors.

Somehow it had flown into the workshop when a door was open while I was retrieving a tool, or restringing the weed whacker or just left the door open while mowing grass. The workshop is a large room above the horse stalls. When the bird wearied of pressing fruitlessly against the glass, it flew to other windows, assuming one of them may be the portal to freedom.

I opened the entry door on the other side of the room, through which it probably entered. Then I opened the double door immediately below the bird, through which we lift large bales of hay or bags of feed from ground level. So, immediately below the bird, and behind it, are real openings through which it can fly to freedom.

Instead, it kept pushing against the glass, banging its head, pecking its beak, slapping with its wings, struggling to reach the sky and trees it plainly sees, rather than leaving that vision and discovering either open door.

Its goal was in sight and its limited understanding kept it from grasping the effect of the transparent barrier that was keeping the goal inaccessible. He could see it and there was no visible reason why he shouldn’t be able to reach it. But instead of stepping back and evaluating, it kept pressing because bird logic told him he ought to be able to fly to those trees.

I scooted it away from the window with a long pole, making it fly about the large room, thinking it would look for another way out and would surely see the open double door a mere foot beneath the window that kept resisting it.

It didn’t. It chose to keep banging its head against the window, its eyes fixed on the wide open spaces it could not physically attain.

How many times has your goal been in sight, seemingly close enough to touch? But some invisible barrier kept you from realizing it and you never thought to simply back up, look for another entry point, another starting line?

You can continue to beat your head against the glass wall, making no progress. Or try a different approach. Inhale. Back up. Reevaluate. Look around. Listen.

The bird wouldn’t give up on the destination it saw through the glass. It never realized the single path to its chosen goal was impossible. It died trying, rather than backing up to find the open door.

Don’t be like the bird.