The Catching Room

A business owner is like trying to catch a butterfly in a dark room full of mosquitos…naked…using a net with a hole in it.

You swing and you swing and you miss. You get bitten a bunch, in places that you shouldn’t. You will be full of bites and anytime anything touches you, you will forever be jumpy. Your skin will never be the same.

But, out of pure luck, one of your swings will catch one of those butterflies, or at least knock it unconscious with the rim of the net so it falls in. You will pick up that butterfly and marvel that you caught it, looking around to see if anyone saw it.

You will tell your friends about how you caught it, but they won’t really care. No one will appreciate your butterfly catching skills.

But, a funny thing will happen. It’s a force of nature so strange that even Science (yes, the one with the capital S) can’t even figure out. For some reason, catching the butterflies will get easier.

Without doing much, you will start to catch more butterflies and you will get quite used to the mosquito bites. You will never realize why, but for some reason, every time you swing your net, you get better and better at catching butterflies. Your eyes will start to adjust to the dark and even your nose will start getting good at picking up when they are close. You will start to be able to hear the difference between a buzz and flap, as easy to tell apart as country music and gangsta rap.

When it’s time to leave the room and the light is turned on, you will look at your net and you will be shocked to realize how many beautiful little critters you caught, many of which you do not even remember. You will make a note later to take inventory of your mosquito bites, but by the time you try to count them, they have mostly healed.

The funny thing is when you go to bed that night, you will have a hard time figuring out if you miss the butterflies or the pesky mosquitos. You will stay up late trying to figure this out, and at some point, have an epiphany that never occurred to you before.

You will suddenly remember the sign that you saw as you left the room. It all makes total sense now.

Warning: Welcome to the butterfly room. All butterflies will bite when they are young.