Out of curiosity - or perhaps sheer boredom- I picked up this children’s bedtime story book from my younger brother’s shelf. I read a few of them, you know, for old time’s sake.
Turns out Aesop’s fables resonate more with me now than they did back in second grade. You are familiar with his work if you’ve heard the saying, “Slow and steady wins the race”. It comes from one of Aesop’s most famous fables - The Tortoise and the Hare.
I read The Wolf and the Lamb and decided to delve deeper into it. I’ll provide a link to the story here, in case you are unfamiliar with it. It’ll just take a minute.
In the story, the wolf incessantly keeps on coming up with reasons to attack the innocent lamb and in the end makes the lamb his supper. When I read the moral - any excuse will serve a tyrant, I couldn’t help but feel a little called out by it.
I’ll provide context.
I’ve spent quite a long time having to be constantly “on”. People have different words for it- hustling, on the grind, working hard, locked-in. The last two years of high school and then the time I spent studying for a competitive exam for medical school had me constantly sacrificing things I wanted to do, for the things I needed to do. I don’t condemn sacrifice and focus, but I do think that staying in that space for a long-time changes things.
Like with everything else, there are consequences, some of which are not necessarily beneficial.
When that phase ended, I had some time to myself, and I found myself in the same state of unrest I had expected would disappear at the end of the tunnel. Turns out, staying in a state of chaos, uncertainty, or of unrest for a long time, makes the mind get used to it.
So later, even after all real-life triggers vanish, the mind looks for, and sometimes even constructs, scenarios for you to feel those same feelings again. Familiarity is held on to, by the mind, even if it is with the feelings you didn’t like.
Turns out we fear change.
Over the past years, I had made a list of 30 things I wanted to do after my exam was over. It turns out my subconscious mind had gotten used to looking at the list, yearning to do the items on the list, saying, “Ah, I wish.” and then proceeding to delaying the gratification.
It grew so used to it that when I took out that list three days after the exam, I couldn’t help but feel weird. I was so used to putting the things I like to do off, that now the opportunity of actually doing them was making me uncomfortable. It almost sounds funny.
That’s why when I read The Wolf and the Lamb, and read about the “tyrant” I felt something profound. I finally had a name for the thing I was experiencing. The Tyrant Problem. In the past naming certain tendencies has helped me overcome some of them. So, here’s my piece.
Sometimes, our subconscious will resist change. The brain- or we, will come up with bogus yet real sounding reasons like- “I could just do that later”, “that isn’t even cool”, or “look, you need xyz to do this thing”; to keep us from change. To keep us from evolving, growing into something greater or as in my case, to keep us from truly resting. Our subconscious takes on the role of the Wolf, the tyrant.
The tyrant doesn’t care about the bigger picture. He doesn’t really care for our desires. He just knows one thing and that is to use every excuse, every opportunity, every opening to make sure that his desires are met.
This is where we must not give in, because any excuse will serve the brain’s purpose. This is where we must fight, and consciously choose to say, “Thank you for keeping me safe during that time of hardship, but the old ways serve us no longer. Change is scary, but change is okay.”
We must be deliberate about it as it takes real effort to ward off a tyrant. The first and the most crucial step is being aware. It is to ask the question, “Am I standing in my own way without even realizing it?”. It is then our job to be kind to ourselves if we are indeed facing the tyrant problem, instead of blaming or shaming.
For after all, the responsibility to take steps to make our lives feel authentic to us lies upon our own shoulders. We can’t hear our true self’s quiet whisper if we are distracted everyday by a pompous tyrant.
Hope this was somewhat insightful.
Have a terrific week!
Love,
Maanya
Music:
Fascinating Finds:
Brain-dump Journal:
I’m good at coming up with ideas. However, tragically I tend to be excellent at forgetting them. Keeping a notebook on table at all times, which I now conveniently call the ‘brain-dump journal’ is game changing. I write everything from- get mom sunglasses for her birthday, to, don’t forget to embed the playlist at the end of the post; in it as and when the thoughts pop up in my head.
Page light:
If you are someone who likes to read before bed but can’t because you don’t want to disturb the person sleeping next to you, these can help you. My brother got one recently and I’m genuinely impressed by it. As always you are one amazon search away from owning one if you want.