Two Wolves

There are two wolves inside us, goes the old Cherokee legend. They are locked in an eternal battle for control over our soul. One of them represents fear and the other represents hope.

The question is, which one wins?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this story recently. I think it’s very appropriate for the time we live in.

So much of what I see on the news is meant to instill fear. Shootings, terrorist attacks, Russian hackers, anything Donald Trump does. I’m lucky because I don’t watch the news very often, but now it makes sense why so many people are terrified all the time.

Fear is a powerful force. It seems like it evolved very early on to keep us safe from external threats. The amygdala is the fear center of the brain, and it’s part of the so-called reptilian brain because of it’s primitive nature. It gave our distant ancestors the ability to react quickly and instinctively to predators.

But fear is not the same thing as danger. And the world has changed more quickly than our amygdala’s have been able to keep up with. Those same shortcuts that gave our ancestors a speed boost no longer serve us in a world that requires more deliberate thought.

I would venture to say that most of our collective fears nowadays are misplaced. By that I mean, there is a mismatch between how much we fear most things, and how much danger they actually present to us.

For example, flying in an airplane is actually safer than driving to the airport. Dying from a shark attack is less likely than dying from falling off a chair. And being killed in a terrorist attack is much less likely than dying from heart disease.

Vsauce has a great video about risk.

Our fears don’t match up with the actual risks involved, which is a result of our cognitive biases. Now, cognitive biases deserve a whole post of their own, but the results of this mismatch are real and have measurable economic impacts.

A great example can be found in the stock price of McDonalds and Coca Cola. If people assessed the risk of heart disease more accurately, they would eat less fast food and those companies wouldn’t make as much money.

And it’s not like the true costs of heart disease and obesity really go anywhere. They just get pushed onto our healthcare system, and reduce productivity through higher morbidity and mortality. And these are just the most direct and obvious effects. Who knows how far-reaching the ripple-effects of miscalculated risks actually go.

Misplaced fear seems to be everywhere I look. Even internally.

One big realization I had recently was how often I was afraid. Whether it was before interviewing with a certain company, or expressing interest to a cute girl, or having a difficult talk with a friend, or just making any kind of life choice. I realized that so much of my decision-making process had been dictated by what I was afraid of, rather than what I wanted or hoped for.

And that’s when I became aware that there even was an alternative: hope.

Hope is constructive. It paints a picture of a better tomorrow. It feels like freedom and when it’s grounded in realism and action can accomplish amazing things.

But it’s fragile. It needs to be nurtured and grown and focused on. It requires positive visualization and clear thinking.

Personally, I found that I felt better and performed better when I acted from a place of hope rather than fear. I was also able to quiet a lot of my self-doubt and be more authentic to myself. For example, instead of taking steps to mitigate the fear of rejection, I would instead express my wants and hopes more openly and honestly.

Because part of me believes in the self-fulfilling nature of belief. Whether we fear something happening, or hope for it, somehow, and surprisingly often, the Universe will make it happen. Whether that’s because we bring it about, one small, unconscious action at a time or because of some mystical force.

We are animals at the end of the day, and we all know how dogs can sense fear and unease. We leak information non-verbally. And others can pick up on that. It can become contagious. And that chain reaction is exactly how mass hysteria happens.

But hope is contagious too. We just call it inspiration. And it takes a certain strength of character, knowledge, passion, wishful thinking and action to get others behind a cause.

So here’s to the crazy ones.

I think we could all use a little more hope these days and that’s what my intention with this blog has been. To send a message of hope, one article at a time.

Because the answer to the question of which wolf wins the fight is that it depends.

The wolf that wins will be the one that you feed.