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 wolf 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, ‘Grandpa, which wolf wins?’
The old Cherokee simply replied, ‘The one that you feed.’
As we go about our lives, we can choose which of the wolves we want to feed. We can choose to feed the wolf of compassion, peace, love, faith, serenity, and all those good things in every moment, or we can choose to feed the evil wolf.
We have to remember that it’s not often one choice, one single feeding of one wolf or the other, that creates what we see inside ourselves and what we see inside the world. It’s a long history of feeding one wolf continuously instead of the other.
For years I fed the Evil Wolf. I’m not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, thin enough. I am dumb, stupid, fat, ugly, useless, hopeless, a failure. If only I was taller, smarter, prettier, thinner….. It’s just not fair.
Strangely enough life was pretty darn miserable and I missed out on a lot of experiences and opportunities because I was so caught up in my own misery.
To feed the Good Wolf wasn’t easy. The Evil Wolf would push its way in and demand to be fed but over time the Good Wolf became stronger because it was fed more often.
The Good Wolf won because, in the end, I fed it more often. No one else could feed it but me.
Which wolf are you going to let win?
