Be the Penguin

Guess what, everybody? Today is Penguin Awareness Day.

Put on your tuxedo and waddle on down to your nearest iceberg because today is all about your favorite non-flying fowl.

I feel I need to give this holiday some credit. Penguin Awareness Day? Mission. Accomplished. They are everywhere. In our movies… on t-shirts and keychains … in boxes of stuffed animals that our parents demanded we take with us the last time we were home for Thanksgiving because -- and I quote -- “You have a basement. You need to take this crap with you.”

When you think about it, it’s pretty impressive that penguins have been granted this level of cuddliness in pop culture. Birds are traditionally not thought of as huggable, snuggly, or cute. Cartoon birds? Sure, Tweety has his charm. But actual birds? With their beady eyes, sharp beaks, scaly feet, and skittish attitude? They’re hiding something. And it doesn't seem good.

The penguin is one of the rare exceptions. He’s got formal wear! She waddles! Anything that perfectly dressed and perfectly awkward is immediately adorable.

And when waddling won’t get the job done, they just tip over onto their bellies and slide. Imagine cruising down your workplace corridor toward the copier with this kind of action.

Even with these adorkable advantages, penguins are in a tough spot. It has to be lonely to be a penguin in the bird family, not being able to fly. Emus and ostriches can’t fly either, but they have height and speed on their side. Penguins, even emperor penguins, don’t get that tall, and they certainly aren’t breaking any land speed records.And don't even get me started on peacocks.

Penguins are outsiders in their own family, destined to look at the sky and never sail across it. It would have been easy to sit down on their ice float -- or tropical beach since apparently penguins live everywhere except the north pole -- and give up. Get depressed, Feel alone, not a part of anything. Always separate.

That’s now what penguins did. They took a tough situation and made it work. They accomplished the impossible. They are birds that swim, for crying out loud. All of those feathered cousins, soaring through the sky? Enjoy your flapping. Penguins decided to dive.

I’m sure they failed the first few hundred times they tried. It wasn’t like they had those foam kickboards I see three-year-olds clinging to during swim lessons at the YMCA. And they probably didn’t hear too many words of encouragement from their brethren in the air. I mean, take a listen. Does this inspire you with confidence?

Sounds more like a taunt than a cheer, eh? Crows are such jerks.

Despite these jeers from high above, penguins stuck with it. They didn’t cry into their feathers. Okay, maybe they had a few nights of wing-weeping. But eventually, they brushed themselves off, They stopped looking above them at the clouds, pining for what could never be. Instead, they looked around them and decided to do something about it. Something new. They took wings and made them flippers. They took feet and made them, well, more flippers. They developed a taste for raw squid, possibly the most impressive feat of them all. And eventually, through determination, grit, and more than a few ungraceful swan dives, they mastered a world they had no business being in. Think about it: some penguins spend more than three-quarters of their lives in water, a place where they can’t breathe. Can you imagine holding your breath for 75% of your life? I can barely hold it long enough to get in and out of a port-o-potty at a music festival on the third day. But they made it happen. They did the impossible.

In reality, Penguin Awareness Day was created to increase understanding of the endangerment of these funny fowl. We need to keep them around, if only for the fact that they can remind us that hey, things can get better. It would be nice to fly but, without it, their lives opened up to an entire they never knew existed.

Plus, looking at pictures of baby penguins is a certified cure for the Friday gloomy blues. Try it.

See how good that feels? Let's keep that good feeling going. Happy January 20, 2017 everybody!