The Heavy Lifters We Never Notice

Today’s topic came to me as I witnessed one of the strangest things this past week, it was definitely a first for me.

I came out to get in my car, which is garaged btw, and there were ants all over the front of my car.

As I watched them crawl over my car for the 3rd consecutive day, I found myself wondering if you all know why ants exist,  and why fly’s exist?? 

I know that Most of us don’t have warm and fuzzy feelings toward either one. They give us the ick. They are not nice to look at.

Ants invade our space

and

Flies annoy us with their buzzing, and all the gross things they do.

But are you aware that  both of them play a very important role in maintaining the eco systems that WE humans depend on? 

Now, before you wonder what the heck ants and flies have  to do with Lifestyle Medicine, stay with me.

This episode isn’t really about insects.

It’s about awareness.

It’s about appreciation.

It’s about learning to recognize the things that quietly support our lives on a daily basis.

Sometimes the greatest lessons about health and life come from the most unexpected places,

Sometimes they come from an Ant and a Fly.

Most of us spend very little time appreciating them.

We swat them away.

Spray them.

And avoid them.

Yet both of them perform jobs that are essential to life on Earth.

Ants may be tiny, annoying, creepy little things, BUT they are among the hardest workers on the planet.

When they are not in your house or on your car, think of ants as tiny gardeners.

*Ants spend their lives moving and breaking down organic material through the soil, creating tunnels underground that naturally aerate the Earth. Their tunnels help water penetrate deeper into the ground.

Which helps roots grow

Helps the soil stay healthy

Some ants disperse seeds which help plants reproduce  and spread- and some ants breakdown dead insects and organic waste (yes poop).

Ants support entire ecosystems

Fun Fact: Scientists estimate there are about 20 QUADRILLION ants on earth.

That is roughly 2.5 million ants for every person on earth, just so you know the math is right, I looked it up.

The takeaway; don’t worry. EVER. About terminating them, they will replenish… and replenish in a blink of an eye.

Flies have the worst public image in the insect world.

They always land where we don’t want them too.

Just as the ant, flies are also so important they have one of nature’s most important jobs.

They clean up.

They are one of nature’s recyclers.

They help recycle dead plants, animals and organic waste back into the eco system- which returns nutrients back to the soil.- 

So While flies drive us nuts, we need them, they do very critical work- they keep our ecosystems functioning.

Get this.. there are more that 160k known species of flies. And did you know that a lot of these species also pollinate plants? It’s not just Bees. Flies are pollinators too.

Both ants and flies are working every day, all day.

And both of them contribute far more than most of us realize.

With that being said, imagine if they disappeared.

Imagine waking up tomorrow and every ant and fly  was gone, of course at first,  it would be great:

No ants

No fly’s

 No annoyance

Sounds pretty great until we realize what they took with them. 

Soil quality would suffer

No flowers

Decomposition would slow 

The food chains would be disrupted.

A lot of birds, fish and reptiles would lose an important food source.

The effects would ripple through entire eco systems. They would be enormous.

This got me to thinking..

Just as natures ecosystems depend heavily on ants and flies, our human ecosystem relies heavily on a group of contributors we rarely  notice.

The builders

The Sanitation workers

The Utility workers

The road workers

The people maintaining systems most of us rarely, if ever, think about.

Imagine if they disappeared too.

It would not take long at all before we found ourselves in a world of hurt.

Have you ever thought to yourself, why do we tend to overlook things that contribute so much.

The world is sustained by workers-both insect and human- that most of us never notice until their gone.

We humans have a funny habit.

We don’t really notice what’s working.

We notice what’s missing.

We enjoy the finished product, but we rarely think about the work that made it possible. 

We love  our clean water

Our Safe roads

We love our Comfortable, safe homes

Our healthy soil

And food love food on the table.

But we really don’t stop to consider everythingrequired to make those things possible.

Maybe that’s because success is often invisible.

The better something performs its job, the less attention it receives.

Familiarity creates blindness.

We don’t overlook important things because they are unimportant. We overlook them because they are familiar.

They are there everyday

Doing what they have always done.

The more consistently something serves us, the less attention we give it.

We stop noticing it.

We stop appreciating it

And we begin to expect it.

What once felt so remarkable, slowly becomes ordinary. Not because its value has changed, but because we have grown accustomed to it.

And the irony of that is.. some of the most important things in our lives become the easiest  to overlook.

Not because they’re insignificant- but because they’ve been showing up for us all along.

And maybe there is another reason things become ordinary.. 

Maybe we are just drawn to things that are attractive, pleasant, and easy to admire.

We tend to assign value based on appearance rather than contribution.

We mistake appearance for importance.

And we confuse  attention with contribution.

We admire what is visible while overlooking what is useful.

The more  I think about ants, flies, rabbits and the people who keep our community running, the more I realize

That “visibility is not the same as value”

Something can be highly visible- receive a lot of attention- and contribute very little to our daily lives…

And something else can go completely unnoticed while making life possible.

We live in a world that rewards attention.

But attention and contribution are not the same thing either..

SO many of the things holding our world together operate behind the scenes.

Without recognition

Without applause

Without anyone noticing at all.

I think we have become so focused on what is visible that we have forgotten to appreciate what is valuable.

And maybe, that’s the lesson ants and flies have been teaching us  all along…

Value isn’t determined by how much attention something receives..

Value is determined by the role it plays and the contribution it makes.

Just because something is highly visible doesn’t make it important.

And just because something goes unnoticed doesn’t make it less valuable. 

At the end of the day, the things holding our world together are the very things we rarely notice.

The truth is, this episode  was never really about ants and flies,

They just helped me  illustrate a larger point.

A point about perspective.

A Point about appreciation.

And a point about the countless things that quietly support my life and your life everyday..

The more I thought about ants and flies, the more I realized they are not so different than humans.

Ants contribute to their eco system

Flies contribute to their eco system

And millions of people contribute to the human eco system. …think about your home.. dozens of people contribute to building one home..

And we don’t recognize their value until their gone.

Let this serve as your reminder… that the world is held together by countless workers operating in the shadows:

Some have 6 legs

Some wear hard hats

Some drive garbage trucks

Some build homes

Most receive little to no recognition- yet, without them, everything changes.

With that being said, I think that one of the greatest gifts we can develop is appreciation… not just for the amazing things- but for ordinary, behind the scene things that make life possible…

The things that keep showing up- that keep working….

The things that we assume will always be there.

Remember- some of the most valuable things in life are not the most visible… they are just the most reliable.

SO next time you see an ant crawling around somewhere it shouldn’t be, or a fly buzzing annoyingly around your head- let them serve as a reminder.. contribution matters..

Every eco system- whether natural or human- depends on countless workers doing their part.

Today was really about learning to appreciate the things that keep your life running beforeyou discover what life looks like without them.

Enjoy!

Joanne Demers

The Aging Mask-A Lifestyle Medicine Podcast

(949)236-1529

Follow along on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/theagingmask

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, welcome back to the Aging Mask Podcast, a lifestyle medicine podcast where together we explore lifestyle, wellness, and our everyday choices that shape the way we age. I am Joanne de Murs, your weekly wellness companion. Thank you for joining me today. I appreciate you and I appreciate the listen. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you very much. Today's topic came to me the other day as I came out to get in my car, and my car is white, by the way, and I notice all of this black stuff on my car, and I'm like, is that ash? And as I get closer, there are ants. There are ants crawling on my car. My car is garaged. There was not a trail of ants on the garage floor going up a tire to the hood of the car. What? They were all over the roof of my car, around the driver window and around the passenger window. None in the back, just on the hood and the front of the car. Not in my house. They weren't in my kitchen looking for food or in my houseplants, in the laundry room, in the bathroom. They were on my car. Weirdest thing. I'm still perplexed about it. Now, if you want an update, they are currently gone because of course I'm going to terminate them. And I terminated them, and the ones I terminated, I just left on my car, figuring they'd blow off. But they would tell their little friends that trouble's waiting, so don't come here. I don't know. They're not in my engine compartment. Oh, I don't know. But as I watched them crawling all over my car for the third consecutive day, I found myself wondering: do you all know why ants exist? Why flies exist? I know that most of us don't have warm and fuzzy feelings towards either one of them. They give us the ick. Ants invade our space, and flies annoy us with their buzzing and all the other gross things that they do. But are you aware that both of them play a very, very important role in maintaining the ecosystems that we humans depend on? Do you do you did you know that? Now, before you wonder what the heck ants and flies have to do with lifestyle medicine, just stay with me for a second because this episode really isn't about insects. It's about awareness, it's about appreciation, it's about learning to recognize the things that quietly support our lives on a daily basis. And sometimes the greatest lessons about health and life come from the most unexpected places. Sometimes they come from an ant and a fly. Most of us spend very little time appreciating the ant and the fly. We swat them away, we spray them, we do whatever we can to avoid them. Yet both of them perform jobs that are essential to life on Earth. Now, ants may be tiny, annoying, creepy little things, but they are among the hardest workers on the planet. When they're not in your house or on your car, think of ants as tiny little gardeners. Ants spend their entire lives moving and breaking down organic material through our soil. They create little tunnels underground that naturally aerate the earth. Um, just you know those little tunnels they build? Those tunnels help water penetrate deeper into the ground, which obviously helps the roots grow. It helps keep the soil healthy. Some ants disperse seeds, which help plants reproduce and spread. And some ants break down all the dead insects and organic waste. Yes, it's poop. Ants support entire ecosystems. I have a quick fun fact about ants. Scientists estimate that there are about twenty quadrillion ants on planet Earth. Twenty quadrillion. You heard that right. That is roughly two point five million ants for every person on earth. Every person on earth. That means that I am taking care of 2.5 million ants, you're taking care of 2.5 million ants. Everyone is taking care of 2.5 million ants. And just so you know, the math is right because I looked it up. 2.5 million ants. The reason I say this, the takeaway of that is don't ever worry ever about terminating them. Because sure enough, they will replenish. They will replenish before you even blink an eye. So there's a lot of things hidden in that fun fact. So feel free to kill them.

unknown 6:22

That's horrible.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Terminate. We'll use the word terminate. Now flies, flies have the worst public image in the insect world. They always land where you don't want them to. They're buzzing around. They're and they're not attractive. And just as the ant, flies are also so so very important. They have one of nature's most important jobs. They clean up. They are one of nature's recyclers. They help recycle dead plants, dead animals, and organic waste, and it goes back into the ecosystem, which returns nutrients back to the soil. So while flies drive us nuts, we need them. They do very critical work for us and they keep our ecosystems functioning. Now, get this. There are more than 160,000 known species of flies. And did you know that a lot of those species of flies also pollinate plants? It's not just bees. Flies are pollinators too. But bees get all the credit, not just bees. In fact, I'm not gonna name them because I don't know the names, but it is said that some plants actually depend on those creepy-looking, bulging-eyed, hand-rubbing flies for pollination. I know again, bees get all the credit because they're cute. But remember, flies are helping too. Poor flies. They spend their lives doing all the gross, dirty jobs that keep nature functioning, and they get no credit. Both ants and flies are working every day, all day for us. And both of them contribute far more than most of us realize. Yet, again, they receive no appreciation or recognition at all because the work they do isn't glamorous, and neither one would win a popularity contest or a beauty contest, that is for sure. And nobody hangs a poster of an ant or a fly on their wall. We would hope. With that being said, imagine if they just disappeared. Imagine waking up tomorrow and every ant and every fly was gone. Of course, it would be like a huge celebration at first. It would be crazy, it would be great. No ants, no flies, no annoyance. It sounds awesome until we realize what they took with them when they disappeared. Our soil quality would suffer, we wouldn't have any flowers, our decomposition would slow down, the food chains would be disruptive, a lot of birds, fish, and reptiles would lose an important food source, the effects would ripple through the entire ecosystems and it would be enormous. The ripple would be enormous. And this got me to thinking: just as nature's ecosystems depend heavily on ants and flies, our human ecosystem relies heavily on a group of contributors that we rarely notice. They don't give us the ick. I'm not comparing them. I am just saying that our human ecosystem relies heavily on a group of contributors that we rarely notice, which are the builders, the sanitation workers, the utility workers, the road workers, all the people maintaining systems most of us rarely, if ever, think about. Imagine if they disappeared too. It wouldn't take long at all before we found ourselves in a world of hurt. And if you ever thought to yourself, why do we tend as humans, why do we tend to overlook things that contribute so much? The world is sustained by workers, both insect and human, that most of us never notice until they're gone. We humans have a funny habit, not in the ha ha sense, just in the it's just a quirky weird habit. We don't notice what's working. We don't really notice what's working, we notice what's missing. We enjoy the finished product, but we rarely think about the work that made it possible. We love our clean water, we love our safe roads, we love our comfortable, beautiful, safe homes, our healthy soil, we love the healthy food on our table, but we don't really stop to consider everything required to make those things possible. Maybe that's because success is often invisible. I don't know. The better something performs its job, the less attention it receives, which leads to another part of human nature, and that is that familiarity creates blindness. Familiarity creates blindness. We don't overlook important things because they are unimportant. We overlook them because they are familiar. They are there every day doing what they have always done. The more consistently something serves us, the less attention we give it. We stop noticing it, we stop appreciating it, and we begin to expect it. What once felt so remarkable slowly becomes ordinary. Not because its value has changed, but because we've grown accustomed to it. And the irony of that is some of the most important things in our lives become the easiest to overlook. Not because they're insignificant, but because they've been showing up for us all along. And maybe, and maybe there is another reason things become ordinary. Maybe we are just drawn to things that are attractive, pleasant, and easy to admire. Take the rabbit and the fly, for example. Picture yourself sitting in your backyard and out pops a rabbit. It's hopping around, eating your bright, green, beautiful grass, and you smile and you're ooing and awing, and you take your phone out, you want to take a picture. Then a fly lands on you. You are not reaching for your camera. Now, most of us have very different reactions. One is welcomed, the other is swatted away. But the interesting thing about this is our reaction has very little to do with their contribution to the world. It has everything to do with perception. One is soft, it's quiet, and it's so cute and nice to look at. And the other is noisy, inconvenient, and very easy to dismiss and to terminate. Nature doesn't assign importance based on popularity. Nature assigns importance based on function. And sometimes the least celebrated contributors are doing the least glamorous jobs and carrying some of the heaviest responsibilities. Sometimes the least celebrated contributors are doing the least glamorous jobs and carrying some of the most heavy responsibilities. And my point in saying that is we tend to assign value based on appearance rather than contribution. We make we not make, we mistake appearance for importance. We mistake appearance for importance, and we confuse attention with contribution. We admire what is visible while overlooking what is useful. And the more I think about ants and flies and the people who keep our community running, the more that I realize that visibility is not the same as value. Something can be highly visible, can receive a lot of attention and contribute very little to our daily lives. And something else can go completely unnoticed while making life possible. We live in a world that rewards attention. But attention and contribution are not the same thing either. So many of the things holding our world together operate behind the scenes without recognition, without applause, and without anyone noticing at all. I think that we've become so focused on what is visible that we have forgotten to appreciate what's valuable. And maybe that's the lesson ants and flies have been teaching us all along. Value isn't determined by how much attention something receives. Value is determined by the role it plays and the contribution that it makes. Meaning, just because something is highly visible doesn't make it important. And just because something goes unnoticed doesn't make it less valuable. At the end of the day, the things holding our world together are the very things that we rarely notice. Now the truth is, this episode was never really about ants and flies. They just helped me illustrate a larger point. A point about perspective, a point about appreciation, and a point about the countless things that quietly support my life and your life every day. And the more I thought about them, the more I realized that ants and flies are not much different than humans. Ants contribute to their ecosystem, flies contribute to their ecosystem, and millions of people contribute to the human ecosystem. Think about your home. Think about the dozens and dozens of people that contribute to building one home. And we don't recognize their value until they're gone. So let this serve as your reminder that the world is held together by countless workers operating in the shadows. Some have six legs, some wear hard hats, some drive garbage trucks, some build homes. Most of them receive little to no recognition, yet without them, everything changes. I think that one of the greatest gifts that we can develop is appreciation. Not just for the amazing things, but for the ordinary things, the things behind the scenes that make life possible, the things that keep showing up, that keep working, the things that we assume will always be there. Remember, some of the most valuable things in life are not the most visible, they're just the most reliable. So next time you see an ant crawling around somewhere it shouldn't be, or a fly buzzing annoyingly around your head, let them serve as a reminder that contribution matters. Every ecosystem, whether it's natural or human, depends on countless workers doing their part. So today was really about learning to appreciate the things that keep your life running before you discover what life looks like without them. That is the point. That's all I have for today. Thank you again for listening. And until next week, live in gratitude, keep on moving, and go live your best day yet. Enjoy. If you enjoyed this episode and just can't wait to hear and learn more, don't forget to subscribe to the Aging Mask, a lifestyle medicine podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts. And I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode. So please leave a review on the Aging Mask Instagram. Or if you don't have socials or you're taking a break, feel free to text me at the Aging Mask 949-236-1529. Again, that's 949-236-1529. We can talk about this episode or any of my prior episodes. Let's have a conversation. I'm here and I'm ready to listen, and I would love to help where I can. Bye.