Butterflies, Cockroaches & the Problem with Pretty Things

“If you kill a cockroach, you're a hero. If you kill a butterfly, you're bad. Morality has aesthetic standards.” I read this line recently and it stopped me in my tracks. Not because it’s poetic but because it’s painfully true. We live in a world that celebrates what looks good, not always what is good.

The Cockroach:
It’s ugly. It’s fast. It creeps people out. But it survives, adapts, thrives in chaos, and plays its part in the ecosystem. Still if you spot one, you crush it. Why? Because it doesn’t look nice..


The Butterfly
It’s delicate. Beautiful. Harmless. A symbol of freedom and transformation. But in reality, it's fragile. One wrong touch, one gust of wind it’s gone. And yet… we protect it. Even if it doesn’t do much in return..

The Deeper Truth:
We apply the same lens to people. To ideas. To opinions. To choices. A well-dressed liar is often trusted more than a messy truth-teller. A toxic relationship that looks perfect online gets praised, while a healthy one with flaws gets questioned. A polished resume gets picked over a passionate one that just looks “average.” We judge books by their covers — and sometimes, we miss the entire plot. .

So what do we do?
We pause. We question the instinct to praise what’s shiny and cancel what’s strange. We stop crushing the cockroach before understanding why it's there. We stop protecting the butterfly just because it’s pretty. Because sometimes, the things we fear are just unfamiliar. And the things we praise are just packaged well.

Next time you react — ask yourself: Am I seeing the truth? Or just falling for the wings? #LifeLessons #ThoughtsThatHit #HumanBehavior #PerceptionVsReality #ThinkAgain