           “You only live once”, “Why not?”, “Live life to its fullest”; these are quotes almost everyone has heard at least once in their life.  Throughout the story, “Joyas Volardores” Brian Doyle beautifully how one little creature can live life better than any other species. Through comparisons of other animals and factual evidence, the author is able to portray all the things a hummingbird is able to do in such little time and express the importance of living every moment with purpose. The average life expectancy of a human is seventy one years, a goldfish is ten years, and a shark is thirty years, but a hummingbird on average lives to be only two years old. Also, on average, the human heart beats once per second while the hummingbird heart manages to beat ten times per second, something that we would never be able to hear even if we tried. Imagine the daily routine of an athlete, teacher or even just a basic person and try to put that all into two years, almost impossible.

When someone gets diagnosed with a serious chronic illness and they are told they have less than two years to live the first thought that comes to their mind is that they need to do everything on their so called “bucket list”. Most hummingbirds need to do that from birth. “Each one visits a thousand flowers a day. They can dive at sixty miles an hour. They can fly backwards. They can fly more than five hundred miles without pausing to rest.” (Doyle 95), as little and powerless as hummingbirds are, they manage to get some much done in one single day than most people do in years because to them seven hundred and thirty days is a full life. Most people get winded walking five hundred feet let alone flying five hundred miles without taking a rest. Everyday people sit around waiting for things to happen to them like getting a promotion, a new spot on the team, or even a husband. Tragic and horrible things happen all the time out of the ordinary whether it is getting hit by a car or getting shot for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. So why wait? While waiting for one of the good things to happen, one of the horrible things can happen. Hummingbirds are the number one species in the world to die of heart attacks because of their little hearts beating ten times per second, yet they are able to do many more things than the average human or animal.

           The metabolism for all birds, especially hummingbirds is incredibly fast in order to take in all the oxygen they need to keep their tiny little hearts beating at the rate that they do. Their hearts are an eighth of the size of ours must take in so much oxygen so that their little hearts can function, allowing them to get to the one thousand places they need to go and live as fast as possible. With the gift of fast metabolism comes the risk of death for these birds. “When they rest they can come close to death: on frigid nights, or when they are starving, they retreat into torpor, their metabolic rate slowing to a fifteenth of their normal rate…” (Doyle 95). In hummingbirds cases, resting and relaxing are more dangerous and life threatening for them than keeping busy with their normal routine.  Health and gratefulness are things a lot of people don’t have, like hummingbirds. While people are sitting around and choosing not to do things that some people are not able to do is something nobody wants to, but usually does. There is no reason not to do the things you have always wanted to do like climb Mount Everest or go to Fiji.

Living life on the edge and doing risky things can be dangerous of course, but what is the point in living a reserved long life instead of a quick yet exciting life. Having a heart that beats irregularly fast or irregularly slow should not factor into how you live your life. It is the things inside of the heart, all the little quirks and memories that are going to matter when you die, not the actual size or fastness of your heart. One of the biggest creatures in this world, the blue whale, has one of the largest hearts, being bigger than a car. Having a large heart doesn’t give the whale the ability to do more things in life than a humming bird or human. They function the same exact way and do the same exact things. Being able to look back and think about all the good times and know that you accomplished everything you wanted to in your life is something that most people do not have, but would kill for. However, living life to the fullest and on the edge does not mean that people should be frivolous or careless, it means do things that you want and without any regrets. 

Look back and think about the times you brought your kids skiing in Utah or went snorkeling with sharks in Bora-Bora. Even look back and being proud of the little risks you took like having kids and being the crazy soccer mom or living a dream job in New York City with a major fashion company. So, just like Doyle said “Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime. You can spend them slowly, like a tortoise and live to be two hundred years old, or you can spend them fast, like a hummingbird, and live to be two years old” (Doyle 95). It is in nobody’s hands but their own to choose between an event filled life that they got the most out of or a slow, dull life that has little to no great memories.