All creatures big and small. All creatures big and small. Why are we so afraid of the small creatures? Why? Especially the poor cockroach, our nemesis.

Why? I think ultimately, it’s gotta be professional jealousy, to be honest. I think most of us feel very small in the world. We don’t know what to do. We feel like bugs being crushed or trampled by the circumstances of life.

And, you know, if we inverse this, we reverse this rather, change it. Let’s think to ourselves, the model of the cockroach. Right? So we’re cockroaches. But if we’re cockroaches, then we can actually become men, can’t we?

We can become beings. Right? Actually, I had a very strange experience once sitting at my desk in my office and a cockroach. I’m kind of one of those type of clean people, if you know what I mean. And so I’m sitting at my desk, and lo and behold, beside me, crawls this cockroach.

And she stops. And you know how the antenna, they move it kind of disgusting way, you know. But she seemed to be staring at me. And for a moment, I had that sense of anthropomorphism. What is she saying?

And I heard her say, figuratively, so to speak, in my mind, why are you a man and I’m a cockroach? Why are not you a cockroach and I am a man? And then, of course, immediately comes to mind. The metamorphosis is book the Gregoire, wakes up in the morning, and he’s a bug. And, eventually, of course, the family reviles him, and he gets sick and he dies.

You know? And I think, well, hold on a moment. This does not have to be my life, does it? It could be the exact opposite. No matter how I feel in a sense, I can develop this life.

Many years ago, I went to a yoga conference in Southern India, and I never forget this because the master there, he said, basically, when we wake up in the morning, we can decide whether it’s going to be a good day or a bad day. So I can be in control of this and then many people have said the same thing. Viktor Frankl In Man’s Search For Meaning, he says the same thing that I can decide no matter how horrific my circumstances are. But I guess hope is the big factor here, isn’t it? I always am a hopeful being that I can improve my lot in life and if I don’t believe I can, I remain a bug?

Now, today, the sales of alcohol are off the chart and drug addiction is never been as high. And this is because, I think for the most part, people don’t realize that they have the freedom to be free, so to speak. And you have to take this to yourself, don’t you? Really. You have to say, wait a moment.

I’m not gonna live this way. I’m not gonna go on this way. Now, yes, you have circumstances. Yes, you are married. Yes, you have 2 children.

Yes. You’ve lost your money, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But as long as you are alive as long as you’re alive, you have the opportunity for change, to change. It’s there in front of you and it’s not going to be easy And, yes, you’re gonna hurt some people. You’re gonna hurt yourself.

Small aside here. I bought some groceries this evening. And as I’m leaving, the man said to me, you should go across the street and buy a lottery ticket. I said, why? He said, well, I feel that today is your lucky day.

And I thought to myself, wow. How strange. But you know what I did? I went across the street and I did buy a lottery ticket. So I guess the moral of all of this is that the next time you jump around and are afraid of a cockroach, remember, that poor creature could have been you in a bizarre sense.

Right? But you’re a man or a woman and you’re free to develop. It’s one of the strangest experience I’ve ever had with a cockroach is I used to work with a man who was absolutely enormous, big guy. And a cockroach would make him jump and scream and screech and jump around. It was the strangest thing to see this large person so afraid of a cockroach.

And I think, wow. We should not be afraid of all the creatures, big and small. Leave you with a thought. I’m going into Donghai University, one of the universities here the other day, and there was a whole line of ants running along and I stopped for a moment and I looked at the ants and not one ant stopped and looked up. Not one and said, Leon, how are you today?

Boy, you look good. It’s an honor to see you, sir. I was that insignificant. So I’m free to be me. Free to be me.

This is the point. Isn’t it? Right? So you know what they say. You know what they say. Critical thinking in all of this is necessary, and critical thinking is truly great. You take care. Bye bye.

The cockroach is all of us.