One could argue that there is light and darkness in each of us is constantly at battle. But perhaps one has simply dominated the other, or some sort of balance has been attained.
Each of us has a shady side and a sunny side. There’s an old Native American story about the internal conflict and the way a grandfather explained it to his grandchildren.
One of his grandchildren asked his grandfather, “Why do people fight?“
The grandfather answered and said, we all have two wolves inside of us. These wolves are constantly fighting each other. Everyone has them.
There is a white wolf and a black wolf inside of us.
The black wolf is filled with fear, anger, envy, jealousy, greed, and arrogance.
The white wolf is filled with peace, love, hope, courage, humility, compassion, and faith.
They fight constantly. The grandchild asked his grandfather “which one wins?”
Many people realize how often the works and internal conflict are dominated by the black wolf. Everyone can resonate with the feeding of emotions such as anger, jealousy, and fear. These emotions can at times have power over us. By giving these emotions (the black wolf) headspace we are fundamentally feeding them. It can become hard to snap out of it. Many people have an underdeveloped white wolf.
For some people, while growing up it was not often fed by parents or those people in positions of authority, such as teachers. Certain organizational cultures can encourage the “black wolf.” This can lead their white wolf to be weak, skinny, and small.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not possible to change the focus and attention towards the white wolf and moving forward.
The moral of the “Two Wolves” is that we need to work constantly. It’s true that some people find it more difficult than others to choose the white wolf, but at the end of the day we can choose to stop feeding the black wolf. And choose to feed the white wolf.
It’s that simple. But it isn’t easy,
The black wolf is primarily self serving and mainly interested in staying ahead of the other wolves at any cost. This wolf is the “survivor” within us.
The white wolf, however, is interested in development and sees itself as a mete vehicle to spread love and kindness. It is led by this cause. It doesn’t feel like a choice or an obligation, it just surrenders to the call of this life force -it just feels natural.
It can be tough to get your inner white wold healthy when your black wolf is always eager to steal as much as it can. But by preserving. The day will come when you’ll notice that the white wolf has become equally strong.
While that inner battle may still continue, if you consistently feed the white wolf it will win more fights and get stronger.
When we feed the light instead of the dark, light can overcome the darkness.
From Pity to Praise 