The One You Feed

There were not all too many things I lived by, I didn't have a life full of routines, although my cup of strawberry tea with milk and a little sweetener ever morning would never go away and I didn't get inspired or motivated very easily. Even though this was case for a very long time, I still tried my best to find a quote or saying that would suit me. I read through lists and lists of quotes, Pinterest became my best friend and I even tried coming up with my own! But I could find nothing that made me think differently, something that made me feel like it was something to live by and eventually I gave up...

This might sound terribly overdramatized, but I really felt as if I needed something like that to remind myself that I couldn't just sit around all day doing nothing, feeling miserable. Sometimes you just need to stop looking for things and wait till they come on your path. And on my path it came! The thing I was yearning for, not exactly a quote or a saying, but something to live by nonetheless. It was a tale and it goes something like this:

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

 At first sight I didn't really think about it that much, yet somehow it got stuck in my head and for days I kept on thinking about it. And then one evening when I thought I had messed everything up that could be messed up, I was in my room crying and telling myself how stupid I was and that it was all my fault and after that I started to blame the world and everything in it and kept doing that with raising anger... Let's say that I didn't handle my emotions very well at the time... But then it suddenly hit me: I was feeding the bad! I was feeding the anger, the envy and the regret. I wasn't doing myself any good and I knew that it was only going to get worse if I kept doing this. So I got up, made myself some tea, wrote a letter to myself to get my thoughts straight and went for a run, to really let everything out.

 

Now, I have to be honest and say that this particular night didn't change my life drastically, but it did make me more aware of what I do everyday. I try to ask myself every evening whether I have fed the good more instead of the bad and somehow it gives me peace and goals to follow.

The reason I tell you this is because I'm really curious if you have things that you live for or quotes you truly stand by. Let me know!

♥ Love, Vivian