Teamwork story: The ants' secret formula to success

There is a world that humans don’t know exists, well at least not in such a capacity. This is the world of insects in which way more is going on than humans understand and believe. In this world, insects live their lives similarly to humans do. They have responsibilities, jobs, hobbies, holidays, friends and most importantly they have their sports games which they take very seriously. The most important of them all is the great acrobatic balloon competition which occurs only a couple of times every year. Every insect near and far had been training hard, and now the day of the competition had finally come. The humans had a birthday celebration for one of their kids and the insects only had a few hours before the parents would come back and clean what was left after the celebration. Each time, the flying insects were favorites to win at this competition, because they could grab the balloon strings and fly off in all directions, creating all sorts of patterns in the air. However, on this occasion, there were some rather unusual insects taking part that had never done so. It was a group of ants. Of course, no one expected that they’d do anything special. They were too light and they had no experience at competitions of this kind. When the other insects asked them why they even bother competing, the ants would simply reply, “Our formula to success is teamwork.”

Other insects would laugh and make fun of the ants, “You silly ants. You can’t be more wrong. Your “formula to success” will get you nowhere. Facts show that in every event one of the flying insects that fly alone wins the competition.” The ants just stood quiet and waited for their turn. The competition began, and the insects took their turns, performing beautiful maneuvers with the balloons. As always, the butterfly and the firefly left everyone amazed with their twist and turns, and their wonderful colors. When it was time for the ants to perform, it seemed like the competition had already been decided in the favor of the butterfly. That was until when all the ants started their performance together as one. One by one they climbed up the balloon string forming a thin black thread of ants. When all the string was covered, the last ant climbed over his teammates to reach the balloon. Once there, the ant climbed right under the balloon right where the balloon was tied with the rope and waited a bit for everyone to gather. Of course, this strange spectacle attracted everyone’s curiosity, and soon more and more insects gathered to see what would happen next. Some of the flying insects even started making fun of the ants, “This is their formula to success… holding together while walking up the line”.

The ants again ignored such remarks and continued their performance. Finally, the time came when the ant at the top opened its jaw as wide as it could and bite the balloon. The bite caused a hole in the balloon and air started blowing out, “Pssshhhhhhh!!!” The result was tremendous! The balloon began flying wildly all over the place, doing a thousand pirouettes, while the perfectly synchronized ants, made all kinds of beautiful shapes out of the string. Luckily the ants were the last competitors as at the end of the act the balloon was empty. But none of the insects cared about that because the performance was so magnificent and original that all the insects agreed the ants should win. From then on, in that garden, everyone understood how much could be achieved by working together. In the years to come, the balloon competitions were full of displays carried out by teams, and they put on many wonderful routines. The insects even started to work together in other everyday activities and flourished way more than insects in other gardens. Soon the formula to success was out for all to know and implement, even in the furthest gardens, but only a few of the insects actually did so.