The Squirrel That Always Gets Away
- missy moo
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Presley patrols St Ives in Bingley, Yorkshire, like a seasoned explorer. Nose low, ears alert, heart fully committed to the idea that today is the day. Then it happens—the flicker of a tail, the flash of grey fur—and the squirrel bolts. Presley launches after it with the kind of enthusiasm that suggests destiny itself is on the line.
He never catches it.
The chase is always the same: paws pounding, breath quickening, eyes locked forward as if the world has narrowed to a single moving point. For a few glorious seconds, nothing else exists. pack walking, treats, yesterday, tomorrow—all gone. There is only motion, focus, and the electric thrill of pursuit. And then, just as suddenly as it began, the squirrel vanishes up a tree, Presley skids to a stop, and St Ives returns to normal.
You’d think repeated failure would dampen his spirits. It never does.
Presley trots back, tail wagging, chest heaving, completely satisfied. He didn’t get what he was chasing, but he got something else: release. That surge of adrenaline—the kind that sharpens attention and floods the body with energy—worked exactly as it was meant to. It burned off restlessness, reset his mood, and left him calmer than before the chase began.
Humans aren’t so different.
We often try to avoid that racing-heart feeling, treating it like a problem to be managed away. But in the right dose, adrenaline can be a gift. It pulls us out of our heads and into the present moment. It reminds the body what it feels like to be alive, capable, and engaged. A hard workout, a cold plunge, a spontaneous adventure, even a harmless risk—all of these spark the same chemistry Presely gets from his daily squirrel hunt.
The key, like the chase itself, isn’t winning. It’s moving.
Presley doesn’t dwell on the squirrel’s escape. He doesn’t analyse what went wrong or decide he’s not “good enough” at chasing. He simply enjoyed the burst of energy and returns to his day lighter than before. There’s something to learn from that. Sometimes the value isn’t in catching the thing we’re after, but in letting ourselves run full speed for a moment—heart pounding, senses awake—before coming back to earth.
Tomorrow morning, the squirrel will be back. Presley will chase it. He will fail again.
And he will be perfectly okay.
This story captures something very ordinary and very human: the way we chase things not because we’re sure we’ll get them, but because the chasing itself wakes us up. Like Presley and his squirrel, we all have our moments of sudden focus—when life shrinks down to one feeling, one urge, one burst of energy. For a brief while, the mental to-do list goes quiet and we’re fully here.
What makes us human, though, is how quickly we turn missed outcomes into meaning. We replay what didn’t work, wonder what we should have done differently, or decide the failure says something about us. Presley doesn’t do that. He runs, his heart pounds, his legs stretch, and when it’s over, it’s over. He hasn’t failed—he’s just finished.
There’s a kind of comfort in that normality. Not every effort needs a reward. Not every chase needs a win. Sometimes we just need to move, feel our bodies light up, and burn off the restless energy that builds when life gets a bit too still or a bit too heavy. A walk that turns into a run, a laugh that comes out louder than expected, a brave little leap into something new—these moments reset us more than we realise.
Presley reminds us that it’s okay to enjoy the chase without attaching our worth to the outcome. We can let our hearts race, let ourselves feel alive, and then return to our day a little calmer, a little lighter. The squirrel will always get away. Tomorrow will come. And just like Presley, we’ll still be okay—tail wagging, breathing steady, ready for whatever small, ordinary adventure comes next
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