Feed the Right Wolf

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life:

“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

”It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil–he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”

He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you–and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

In a world of constant connectivity, with 24 hour news streams being transmitted directly into a screen you hold in your hand, it is easy to become overwhelmed. When that information feeds off of causing anger, excitement and fear, it’s no wonder why it becomes so hard to stay positive these days. Untold amounts of data, focusing on the hatred and tragedy of over seven billion beings, is being focused and thrown at you at ever increasing speeds. Our brains haven’t developed the ability to take on so many challenges and stresses at once. We evolved to deal with problems happening in the now, to us and a select number of family and friends. Suddenly, we not only have to worry about the struggle of daily life, but also international developments, political chaos, environmental destruction, a hit by hit account of every national homicide, and the constant whims and musings of a thousand social contacts.

While many choose to just tune out, trying to disconnect via opting out of social media or with brief respites of vacations or Netflix binges, most will eventually tune back in, and the negativity will flow back into their minds like an unrelenting tsunami. We are never going back to a world without this level of connectivity, and we will never be free of our fascination or concern with tragedy and danger. The only way to prevent this constant flow of fear from destroying you is by changing yourself from the inside, so that you may control how you cope with that constant influx of fear and still maintain hope and radiate positivity.

There will never be a true utopia. There will always be fear, danger, pain, heartbreak and tragedy. We will try to eliminate it, but the closer we would get to artificially scrubbing our reality into perfection the further we would get from our humanity. So while we must do everything we can to achieve peace and a better world, the key to maintaining hope and positivity lies within each of us individually. We must choose at every moment to not let fear dominate us. When we see a news report listing the homicides or shootings in our city, we can’t become afraid, thinking our community is dissolving into lawlessness and murder. First, remember that on the whole, the world is getting less violent as the years go on. Then, you need to be thankful that another day is ahead of you and that you are still alive. It is normal to feel sorrow at the passing of another human being, even one you did not know, but don’t let the fact that evil acts happen make you lose hope in the overwhelming goodness of humanity. Remember, we measure homicide rate by about 1-10 murders per 100,000 people. No matter how many news reports you see, know that the act of killing is not normal, or even widespread, within our societies.

When it seems like the world is falling apart, also remember that journalism is geared to focus on the tragic, and even when it doesn’t, we pay attention far more to the tragic stories and thus give them more weight. We might scroll directly past the story about the near eradication of polio and stop on a story about a terrorist bombing that killed twenty innocent people. We choose what to focus on, and in that case we ignored the fact that medical advancements and the hard work of dedicated professionals and volunteers are saving thousands of lives every year and chose to focus on the tragic death of twenty. Amazing things are being done every day to better this world, and while we have so much work to do, and so many behaviors to change and harmful practices to curb, we must focus our energy on the good in this world.

When you see tragedy, do what you can to help. If you can not help in any way, educate yourself and think about ways that tragedy could be subsided, or just take note and move on. Don’t choose to suffer because bad things happen. Choose to be hopeful and focus on the good things that are happening. Share positive stories, volunteer in your community or anywhere else, donate any extra time or money that you can afford. If you let the negativity of this world make you lose hope and stop doing what you can to better this planet, then you have only magnified that hopelessness and increased its power.

Be the change you want to see in the world. When you see someone that needs help, help them. Focus on all the good that happens every day and try to direct other people towards those same thought patterns. This world is filled with love, happiness and hope, but it is our choice in every moment if we want to focus upon and build that hope, or succumb to the fear of tragedy. The wolf that wins, is the one you feed.