The Day a Bird Hit My Window

On reflex, responsibility, and carrying what was never yours.

This morning, a bird hit my window. 

Not lightly.

Not in passing. 

It hit hard enough to leave the full outline of its body behind—beak, feet, the exact moment of impact frozen on the glass.

I was sitting at my desk when it happened. Working. Focused. And at the same time… not entirely present.

My attention had drifted into a familiar mental pattern. 

Someone had asked me to do something. Not cleanly. Not directly. I had already said no to other requests, and this one came sideways. Then there was silence. No follow-up. No urgency. No movement on their end.

And yet there I was, thinking, I should get this done.

Not because they were taking it seriously.

Not because they’d given me what I needed to move forward.

But because the request had landed near me—and old habits are efficient that way.

I noticed myself quietly rearranging my priorities, putting their unfinished responsibility ahead of my own work. Carrying the weight of completion while the other person wasn’t even walking alongside it.

And that’s when the bird hit the window. 

Birds don’t crash into glass because they’re reckless. They crash because reflection looks like open sky. They see light. Space. Forward motion. What appears to be a clear path—and they move on instinct. 

That’s not foolishness. That’s biology.

And it’s also deeply human.

Many of us were trained early to respond before being asked. To anticipate needs. To smooth things over. To finish what others start because tension feels uncomfortable and responsibility feels familiar.

We learn to confuse proximity with obligation.

To mistake reflex for calling.

To assume that because we can carry something, we should.

What struck me most was this: the window was marked. There were signs. Awareness existed.

And still—impact.

Which tells me this wasn’t about failing to know better. It was about catching the moment before the old pattern completed itself.

The bird didn’t die.

It flew away.

That mattered to me.

Because the lesson wasn’t punishment. It wasn’t danger. It was interruption. A pause loud enough to bring my attention back to my body, my work, my lane.

The realization was simple and sharp:

Why am I carrying the urgency for something that isn’t being treated urgently by the person who asked?

Why am I doing the labor of follow-through when the other party hasn’t even shown up to the task?

Why am I mistaking responsibility for reflection?

Growth doesn’t always come from making a different choice next time. Sometimes it comes from stopping mid-motion and asking why you were moving in that direction at all.

So here’s the question I’m sitting with—and I’ll offer it to you too:

Where are you doing someone else’s work so thoroughly that they don’t even realize they’ve stopped doing it themselves?

Where are you moving forward out of habit instead of consent?

Where are you carrying something simply because it was placed close enough for you to grab?

Not every path with light is meant to be taken.

Not every request deserves momentum.

And not every reflection is an opening.

Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is stop—before you disappear into something you’ve already outgrown.

You can see clearly how hard the bird hit!