There are many internal battles that we all go through pretty frequently.
I talk to a lot of people about their personal battles because of my career. I'm often talking to people that struggle with mental health and addiction issues in my day job.
While it's true that we sometimes can't control the condition of our mental health, there are times when it's dependent on where we place our focus.
One evening, an elderly Cherokee Brave 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 elderly Cherokee replied, “the one that you feed.”
The concept is so simple—a positive mindset yields positive results—yet we don't do it.
The primary reasons for this are we either don't know how or don't believe it'll work.
It's easy to focus on the bad stuff. It's easy to be negative. It's easy to be a pessimist. A critic. Cynical.
It's easy and it's lazy.
It takes work to feed the right wolf. That's why we don't do it. It takes energy. Sometimes we don't have it.
But if we never work to have it, then we'll never have it. It is that simple.
How do you have joy when you're pissed off all the time? How do you achieve peace and maintain it?
Maybe it sounds too good to be true.
Then again, maybe that's the wrong wolf.