What comes to mind when one thinks of a dung beetle? Perhaps a picture of a dark, lurid splotch on a field of green, trundling along with a smelly mass of fecal matter, mute in its futile goal to push that mass all the way across a field. I, too, pictured this grotesque image, turning my nose up at the idea that some small creature’s life goal was to collect feces.

Then, I saw this beetle on a hike with my mother, we were smiling and chatting on a hot day, walking across a field, eager to get to our trail, to get into the woods. There was a lull in the conversation and I looked down and saw this beetle, climbing up each blade of grass, pushing this perfect sphere up and down, that was at least twice its size. I was aware of the time it would take me to cross the field myself, and frowned.

I drudged up a memory of some National Geographic statistic: Dung beetles — after hunting and scouring the earth for the dung that they need — gift their life’s work to their mate. This beetle, hell-bent on pushing a ball of dung across the field, won’t even be able to enjoy it.

My mother and I take some time to watch it. A little dot of black, pushing the ball with its hind legs, up every blade of grass. It’s mesmerizing. The beetle has no social calendar, no agenda. What a life! One goal, one mission. Get dung to mate. How quaint!

This beetle disrupted my day. Its presence tickled and irritated something within me. I felt guilty. I live beyond my means, I have everything I could ever want and I yet I am still unsatisfied. It irked me, that the quest of this idiotic little creature unearthed a wave of doubt.

I realized something, life should be simple, spontaneous. Everything does not have to be so convoluted, so complex. Everyone should live for the moment even for just a second. Stop to take a look around in the halls walking from class to class, try and ease the worry creasing other’s foreheads. It’s not always about what’s next, sometimes you just have to stop, and in my case, look at beetles.