Whichever one you feed!

Whichever one you feed is a sentence I have heard for a long time, as well as the well know story below. But I never quite get how it works, I understand but I have not realized it. Its like certain verses from a holy book, you get it but you haven’t realized it, there was not an ‘aha’ moment yet. So I am here to share with you my realization on the famous Native American short story/ long quote below:

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson 

about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between 

two "wolves" inside us all.

One is Evil.

It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, 

arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies,

false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. 

It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute

and then asked his grandfather: 

"Which wolf wins?" 

The old Cherokee simply replied, 

"The one you feed."

                                                                                                                  
                                                                                                  —A Native American Metaphor

Sometimes we think of how we are so lazy to get up in the morning and go to work. Positive and negative thoughts is the same as evil and good thoughts although not respectively.  The more you feed the evil thoughts and sit with it the more likely you are going to turn to do the evil action. The more you try to feed the good thoughts, the more likely you are going to do the good deeds. This is done by reinforcing your thoughts. Suppose an idea in your head, like random ideas come to our head all the time. For example you are currently mad at your sister because she just ate your sandwich. Then you thought of making another sandwich or you thought of scolding her so badly that she would not dare to eat your sandwich again. Since she have gone by then, you decided to make another sandwich, yet you haven’t forgot your anger throught the process of making the sandwich you are feeding your tought about just how bad your sister have been treating you all this while since you were a kid. You are angry, you are forgetting about the good times, she is all bad in your head right now. You are holding a knife, you angry with your life and with your sister, in fraction of a second you thought about what if I just kill her. But of course we have intelligence to check that thought, what about prison? Are you kidding? She is your own sister!

Two things might happen. First, if you are aware that you and your thoughts are two separate thing (we are not this body, we are not this mind, we are this soul) you will try to feed in more good thoughts about what your sister have possibly done good to you or various reasoning for her previous bad behavior and try to figure a nice way to put it to her to prevent this happening in the future. Second, you will feed your thought about how to kill her without leaving a trace. Mind you that all this thought process will barely take a minute and can be triggered by a simple act such as sandwich robbery (this is how we do it in Kali-Yuga babe!). 

Then you wait for her to come back. The longer you wait the more you think, and thing can alternate at any point. Lucky if she comes during the time the good thoughts are winning, bad luck if she come on the other minute. This is probably what is called destiny on her part. The same goes with positive and negative thoughts. Positive thoughts doesn’t change the world and if you think positive not everything around you will become positive, nor will you attract positive things to happen to you. That’s absurd to think such a simple thing just change the world like that (I have no problem with those who believe so, I just don’t believe, to each his own).

Recently I have been feeling very negative about work, my new Division Head has just been appointed, so obviously she needs her numbers and has started following our moves very closely, asking for reports etc. When you are used to be given a certain kind of freedom, this constant reporting is very troublesome, especially when the market is bad and you just don’t have the numbers. So I have been dragging myself to work despite my body going hard against it. I have to convince myself to wake up for work the way my Dad used to convince to wake up and go to school when I was a kid. On the journey in the car I try to think different reasons that might make me feel good. Thoughts such as at least I have a job, I can go home at 5, I normally don’t get stuck in traffic coming from this side compared to most people working in the city Centre, etc. I try to convince myself that even if I don’t perform well, I have to work, this way even if there are no numbers I can answer the different ways at which I try to pursue it and about my perseverance. And once you reach work normally all will be just fine, nothing out of the ordinary, well except for the particular day when we have to report of course. But just because of that one day a week, probably 2 hours of lecture, why spoil your mood for the whole week, right?

But if I feed myself negative thoughts like today and ended up staying at home, I will have more work to do tomorrow and I will appear to be unprofessional for missing work for the simplest reason.

So that’s my understanding of the story ‘ whichever one you feed’ in complex thoughts made simple or you may feel I’ve made it otherwise, feel free to comment on any aspect of  content and writing! Help me improve J