There are two wolves who are always fighting. One is darkness and despair, and the other is light and hope. The question is: which wolf wins?
The answer is: The one you feed. This is a great quote from a movie I saw a couple of days ago: Tomorrowland, which has a very inspirational and beautiful message, but it is in fact a Native American Cherokee story, and I would like to share it with you, please read it carefully, the message is wonderful, believe me, you won’t regret it:
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life.
He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all“
“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.”
A beautiful story, isn’t it? It has within a powerful message that teaches us one thing: We decide. It is up to us to decide which of the wolves we will feed. It doesn’t depend on anyone except ourselves. The story reminds us that we all have a great power within us: The power to decide who we are, what gives us the control of our own feelings, emotions and behaviours.
There are two wolves, there are two of us, they are opposites but equals at the same time, they fight and in the end they become one, and in that moment one of the two wolves’ wins, and the one who wins is the one who we have decided to become. In any given moment we have the chance to decide which wolf is going to win the battle, our external circumstances together with any person we meet along the way will help one of the wolves, but in the end we are the ones who decide who wins. The one who wins more battles, that is to say, the one who we have fed more will win the fight. The question is: Which of them are you going to let win?
“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” – Stephen R. Covey
The first and most important question you should ask yourself is: Who am I? – Which wolf do you think you are? With which one you identify yourself with? Which wolf represents your true self? Once you discover the answers to those questions, you will decide which wolf will you feed, and that is the most important thing that can happen to us: To know who we really are and act according to our true self, being the best version of ourselves.
Every single day of your life, in different situations, you will always have the power to decide: Am I going to feed today the “bad” wolf or the “good” wolf? Am I going to be my true self or am I going to be who I’m not? Am I going to let external situations to control my feelings, emotions and behaviors or am I going to act as my true self? The decision is yours, and that of course is the difficult part to accept, because it’s much easier to blame others for our behaviors rather than having full responsibility for what we believe, think, speak and do. But always remember that it doesn’t matter who you were yesterday, what really matters from now on is who you choose to be right now. Your past situations do not define you, because it is you who define yourself, it is you who has the power to decide now who you really are.
“Who are you now? Who have you decided you really are now? Don’t think about who you have been. Who are you now? Who have you decided to become? Make this decision consciously. Make it carefully. Make it powerfully.” – Tony Robbins
Let’s take just a couple of minutes to think. Think about the last few days, which wolf do you think you have been feeding? How do you feel about that? If your life is full of happiness, joy, peace, if you believe, dream and wish, if you feel happy even when your life is not going 100% the way you wanted, then probably you have been feeding the right wolf because you have decided to feel that way even though your external circumstances gave you a lot of resources to help you feed the other wolf. Can you see? You have the control at any moment to decide which wolf you are going to feed, and when we have the control, we are free, and we are no longer vulnerable to external circumstances.
Two wolves, one decision, you choose, the power is within you. Your actions will define yourself and will create your destiny. Therefore, which wolf are you going to feed today?