" THE GOOD WOLF AND THE BAD WOLF "
There is an old American Indian tale about a boy who had a bad dream about 2 wolves fighting while he was trapped inside a cave. Disturbed, the boy asked the Medicine man what the dream was all about and the old sage told him , " Each one of us has two wolves inside us, the good wolf and the bad wolf. They always fight with each other. " The boy then asked, " But who wins ? " The old sage smiled, tapped the boy on the shoulders and answered, " Its who you feed. "
Each one of us has had this struggle with our conscience, the inner feeling or voice that dictates to us the rightness or the wrongness of our behavior. Our conscience is like a piece of muscle. the more we exercise it, the stronger it becomes. Yielding to temptations may be fun at first, for the interesting part of living usually occur when we lose our way once in a while. But we must get out it while we are still not too deep in it, it hurts a bit but an error only becomes a mistake when we refuse to correct it. Rectifying the bad deed also requires facing the consequences of such actions. Real trouble starts when we try to cover up for the bad deed we did, complicating the matter and usually leading to committing more bad deeds. Some succeeds in hiding the truth but they will forever have to contend with the fear of being discovered coupled with a lot sleepless nights. The bad wolf never rest, we may be able to block it from our mind, but it will always be there lurking and angling to devour us.
Sometimes the choice are not ours to make. We may have our dreams and plans for our future but we do not always get what we wanted even when we pour our heart into it. The only choice we could make then would be to accept what was given to us by fate or be forever be disappointed and allow our pains to eat us away. It is us who make the choice whether we should be happy with what we have and no one else. Our love ones may be able to ease some of our pains but if we do not stop griping, we will cause them pain and push them away. Lee Iaccoca in his autobiography said " Here I am in the twilight of my life, still wondering what life is all about ... I can tell you this, fame and fortune is for the birds. " Such word from a man who made hundreds of million of dollars in the car business and almost made it to the White House only shows that success and happiness do not always go together.
Muhammad Ali wanted to be "the greatest boxer in history" and a lot of boxing afficionados consider him that. It brought him fame and glory, but the world felt sorry for him as he struggled stricken with disabling "parkinson's desease" as he lighted the Olympic torch, He said he found himself nearer to God with the humbling experience, and with his riches gone, maybe that's the only choice he had to make his life bearable as he awaits his date with the Lord. I could somehow dip in the experience, having dwelled in martial arts in my younger days. I could fight and handle guys twice my size in my prime, but now in my advanced age, gout crippled hands and needle piercing pains in the soles of my feet, I could not peel a potato. But I assure anyone, believers and non-believers that even if I could have another shot at life, I would choose the same one I am having. There is nothing more reassuring in life than to know in time of my demise I will be holding the hands of who will surely miss my absence. I may not be able to leave some riches they could enjoy spending but they will surely spend a great deal of memories of the times well spent while we were together.
It is not easy to let down the people who are betting on you. But there are times that you have to take a different path to the one they have taken. Maybe they were right in saying that I was stupid, lacked ambition, and bull-headed, but they were wrong to say that I afraid of hardwork. I have been working hard eversince I was a kid and I never stopped. I just could not take the risk of leaving 5 young kids behind who needed my presence more than anything else. My wife would surely be able to raise them, money earned from working abroad will surely provide them a lot of things they would love having, but the difference a year or a couple of years would make may take more years bridge. Wounds leaves scars, and misunderstandings sometimes causes more misunderstandings. We may not have built a castle during those trying years but together we have laid the foundations of their dreams. I may not have given them much in terms of material things but the shared experiences will make the hurdles in their future life easier to jump over. I may have erred, they may be right in calling me an idiot, but I can assure them that at least I am a "happy idiot."
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