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."
An old Cherokee legend.
We have quite wide array of different emotions. A common way to separate our feelings is to split them into negative and positive emotions, but sometimes it is not clear to see what emotion is good for you. Emotions also serve as motivators and we can harness their power to get through life. In modern psychology it is often adviced that we should be able to use all emotions in a healthy way, which means we should also be able to convert negative emotions to positive energy. It is often hard to see beforehand are we in control of our negative feelings or are we dwelling in them and feeding the wolf.
We all know examples in real life, probably also in our own lives, when emotions can take over. Usually, when our lives are changed dramatically and quickly, our emotional card deck becomes all mixed up. Death of a close friend or relative, massive material losses, accidents, relationship problems etc. are most likely going to shock us. But also little things that cumulate over time can have serious impact on our mind. Everytime you make a choice you "feed" some emotion. You can start to make choices that favor certain reasons and emotions and they can begin to stack. In time, they might become a heavy burden or consume us so we don't even notice what we have stumbled knee-deep into.
For example, after death of a parent siblings might choose a different routes to process the loss. One might close in completely, taken by the sorrow and sadness. That is the normally accepted form of griefing. Another one might start to fuss over funerals with burst of energy and trying to process feelings that way. Both might carry a danger, but somehow the first one carries a greater risk, in my opinion. In that case feelings are not used, rather they are stored inside. In time they can start to corrupt the mind and twist opinions and actions. Not that it happens always, but it happens too often. Same could be said for a man who loses his job. He might be taken over by self-pity, inferiority or even guilt and become passive, maybe resort to drinking or crime. Or he might, in his anger and disappointment, start to study for another career. Even if that sounds good, he might still be doing a bad choice, as led by the wolf.
I'd like to hear what thoughts this little story arises in you. For me, the biggest question is : how and how long can we use our emotions before they start to use us? Positive emotions can overtake as well and start to cloud our eyes. Love is sometimes blind, as we know.
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