Many young people in China have turned to their “inner bird” to escape hustle culture. According to the New York Times,1 some young people in China are pretending to be birds to deal with work and academic pressure, among other challenges. The trend offers a break from “being human” when the future feels uncertain.
The bird trend is relatively small by China’s standards; however, thousands have participated, posting pictures of themselves wearing an oversized shirt that covers their arms and torsos, legs hidden, and hands sticking out like claws. Once they are in the correct position, they conjure their inner bird and make the best chirp possible. The vocalization brings it all to life because, as Maya Angelou once said, “A bird does not sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song.”
Although this trend may sound bizarre, Chinese youth are actually tapping into a small portion of Biblical truth to conquer worry and anxiety. They’re considering the birds. In a world where the stock market might soar one day and crash the next, and tariffs threaten to increase prices on everything from phones to bananas, Jesus provides some comforting words to quell our economic anxieties. “Consider the birds.”
In Matthew’s sixth chapter, Jesus offers a profound formula for breaking the cycle of worry. The formula begins with a visualization technique, as we imagine beautiful creatures that epitomize freedom. Birds are unbound, unrestricted, and completely carefree. After Jesus tells us to consider the birds, He reminds us of how valuable we are compared to a bird. When worry takes over, we often diminish our value, believing that God might abandon us or that our troubles are insignificant to Him. But Jesus reminds us that God values us much more than the birds.
Jesus then prompts the disciples to ask a simple question: “Does worrying about this add a single hour to my life?” Contemplating this question helps us realize that worry is a waste of our time. Worry subtracts from peace, health, and well-being. Worry also serves as a distraction.
People often mistake worry for a ‘feeling,’ when it’s actually an ‘action.’ Worry is a thought process that leads to anxiety. In Greek, the word for worry is “merimnao.” The word means to be drawn in different directions. As a person is pulled apart by worry, they find themselves in a state of distraction, which is another definition for the Greek word merimnao. And worry does indeed distract us from the present moment. Through worry, we suffer tomorrow’s suffering, which may not even come, causing us to suffer for a world that never existed.
When we worry, our minds and attention are diverted from God’s presence and promises, and instead, we focus on our fears. But it’s possible to talk ourselves out of anxiety with an inner monologue that repeats the words of Jesus. His words remind us of our intrinsic value, far more than the birds of the air and flowers of the fields. Jesus’ message is to stop the process of worry, cutting anxiety at the root, so there can be peace.
Jesus frequently addresses the issue of worry because God knows the world we inhabit. It’s a world filled with political strife, wars, pandemics, and, recently, dire wolves.2 Social, financial, and political anxiety are pervasive and understandably so. When this passage on anxiety in Matthew was written, it was during a time in which poverty was a reality for many. The audience would have been well acquainted with the concept of worry. Many of them lived in survival mode, anxious about the future.
Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard published multiple discourses on Matthew 6:24-34. In one of his most psychologically and theologically rich works, The Concept of Anxiety, Kierkegaard explains that anxiety is something that has always been with us, since the beginning of time. He believes that before sinning, Adam felt anxiety, not because of the temptation, but because of his own inner possibility. Kierkegaard describes anxiety as “the dizziness of freedom.”3 However, Kierkegaard also gave birth to existentialism, believing that humans possess the unique power of choice, including the option to live in the present moment and not in a future space of worry. Most people are aware that worrying stems from a desire to be in control. For this reason, when worry begins, it’s essential to ask, “Is this something that I have control over?”
Worry often masquerades as a form of control; people often use worry as an emotional buffer to shield themselves from bad things before they happen. But Jesus asks us to use our faith as a shield. Fortunately, faith, unlike worry, is an impenetrable protective barrier. Just like birds are unburdened by the potential of a recession, inflation, and a world that grows increasingly dystopian, Christians can also have a sense of inner peace.
We can’t control the world around us, but we can control how we respond to it. We can respond by considering the birds. Hopefully, after we’ve considered them, we realize that we shouldn’t worry about tomorrow but, instead, let tomorrow worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
- Zhuang, Yan. (August 2, 2024) New York Times. “Why Some Young People in China Pretend to Be Birds.” Last accessed August 13, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/02/world/asia/china-birds-social-media.html
- Dire wolves are extinct, but a company called Colossal Biosciences decided to bring them back to life. The project involves genetically modified wolves, which is reminiscent of Jurassic Park, but hopefully, less dangerous.
- Kierkegaard, S. (1981). The Concept of Anxiety: A simple psychologically orienting deliberation on the dogmatic issue of hereditary sin. Princeton University Press, 61.
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