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Wings - User's Guide

You think to yourself: I have been attending language courses for many years, I study more or less diligently, as far as I can, and yet I have the impression that the tool in form of a foreign language is still out of my reach.

Don’t I try hard?

Am I not good enough?

Is it not for me?

Using a foreign language, enjoying it, taking advantage of it and also sweating over it and getting into trouble because of it is like flying. If a little eagle wants to learn how to fly, hunt goats

www.smog.pl/wideo/14274/orzel_porywa_kozice_gorska

and salmons

www.smog.pl/wideo/25262/polowanie_orla_w_zwolnionym_tempie, it needs to suffer some bruising while falling out of the nest.

Unless you are the Eagle in the Henhouse from the following fable. A farmer found an Eagle’s egg. He put it in with the Mother Hens that he kept. Soon the egg hatched out, it was a female, she grew up alongside the other birds in the Henhouse, whatever the they did, the young Eagle did - Why shouldn't she? After all she thought he was one of them. The Hens could only fly for short distances, so the Eagle learnt to do same, because that was all that she thought she should do. One day the young female Eagle saw a bird soaring above her. She was very impressed, “Who's that?” she asked the hens, as they all dashed for cover in panic. “That’s the Eagle, the King of all birds,” the hens replied, run before he catches you". “He belongs to the sky. We belong to the Henhouse - We are Chickens". As she followed suit and scuttled around like a chicken but before she new it, the Eagle had stooped down at great speed and blocked her way. "What are you doing with these chickens, you're an Eagle" the male Eagle said, but the female Eagle didn't believe him, she was smart though and she said "If I am an Eagle then you won't harm me, will you?". "Of course not" replied the male Eagle, look I'll stand aside, and as he did so the female Eagle quickly scrambled into the Henhouse. Later she boasted to the Chickens how she had out-smarted the King of all birds, Oh how they laughed, and so the female Eagle lived and died as a Chicken, for that is what she believed she was.

There is a version with a happy ending, too.

A long time ago, an eagle's egg from high atop a mountain rolled down the mountain and on to a nearby farm. Though the egg was larger than the chickens' eggs, the farmer, thinking nothing of it, placed the egg in the hen house with the other eggs. One day several of the eggs began to hatch, including the larger one. All of the newly born chicks chirped for food. As the hens fed the chicks, the larger one though different, was fed just the same. As years went by, all of the young chicks were now approaching adolescence.

For several years, as they grew older they noticed the eagles flying overhead. This one particular day, one of the flying eagle's also noticed them below but it was one in particular that caught his attention.

The eagle flew to the ground. Fearing being eaten, the chickens ran for cover. Though they ran, the eagle that had grown up with them remained still. In moments, the eagle who had just been in the sky was now standing face to face with the youngster.

"Wow! I wish I could fly as you do."

"What do you mean? Have you been injured?"

"No, I am a chicken and we can't fly."

The older eagle looked on, puzzled.

"You are no chicken."

"Yes I am. This has been my place of birth and I have been here always."

"You may have been born here, but you are not stuck here. You are an eagle who believes he is a chicken and I tell you today that if you change what you believe, then you will fly as high and as fast as I can."

"How do I change what I believe?"

"Close your eyes, see yourself flying high above the ground. See yourself as free from the confines of gravity. When you can see it as clearly with your eyes open as you do with them closed, you will be free to fly!"

Everyday for a month the young eagle closed his eyes and saw himself flying but once he opened his eyes he remembered he was a chicken.

One day the farmer walked by and asked the daydreaming eagle why he was concentrating so hard. "I was told by an eagle that I too am an eagle and not a chicken and so I am trying to believe I can fly."

"Why do you believe you are a chicken?"

"This has been the only life I have ever known. Why would I think otherwise?"

"When I first found your egg, I must admit I thought it was one of the chicken's eggs that had rolled out of the coup but once you were hatched, I could clearly see that you were an eagle, as did all of the other animals on the farm. None of us ever took the time, for various reasons, to tell you were an eagle though. So if flying is what you want, then let go of what you think you are and embrace what you know you are!"

With those words, the eagle closed his eyes and saw the Earth drop below him. . . once he opened his eyes, wings waving, he was flying!

And T. Harv Eker shared the following anecdote with me:

A man was walking in the mountains. Suddenly he slipped, lost his balance and fell down the precipice. Fortunately, he was conscious enough to grab a solid rock. Hanging over the precipice, trying to save his life, he started screaming:

- Help! Is there anybody who can help me?

And he could hear a voice:

- It’s me, God. I’ll help you. Trust me and let it go.

The man said:

- Is there anybody else who can help me?