Why Do We Keep Sitting on Eggs That Will Never Hatch?

We think we can make things change if we sit there long enough — but we can’t

I have a small flock of backyard chickens — 6 hens and no roosters. Without a rooster, the eggs my hens lay are not fertile. But that does not stop them from trying to hatch a clutch of eggs they gather beneath themselves. When I have a hen who refuses to leave the nest because she has gone “broody” I have to dissuade her from her assumption that something is going to happen if she just sits there long enough. Those eggs will never be anything but eggs. No matter what she thinks, it isn’t ever going to change.

Yesterday I had to push a very disgruntled hen off the nest. She puffed up and made a guttural warning noise in her throat and tried to peck me. With some persistence on my part I finally got her to get up, but she was right back in there as soon as I turned my back. This made me think about the times I have been like a broody hen sitting on sterile eggs.

The longest I ever sat on my nest hoping for the outcome I wanted was the 27 years I was in a difficult marriage. All through those years I kept thinking if I could just make this adjustment or tweak that little thing everything would get better. I convinced myself it was me, and if I could just get my mind right everything would be ok. So I burrowed down in my nest with my eggs of hope and waited. I puffed up and struck out when my wise self came to the nest to push me off. I was not ready to give up the idea that someday those eggs would hatch and I would have a nest full of happiness and joy.

But at some point a broody hen has to give up or she will die. She cannot continue to sit forever without nourishment and exercise. Sitting on a nest can weaken a hen and she has to regain her vigor by abandoning the nest and eating and drinking and scratching around with the other hens.

In the same way, I had to abandon my project of making my marriage work when I realized I was not going to survive if I didn’t. No amount of sitting on those infertile eggs had ever made a difference and it came down to self-preservation over ill-conceived effort. I left that nest of eggs and began to regain my strength as I gave up on making those eggs hatch.

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