I came across this story while listening to the new Vassos Alexander book on a morning run today.

I was told the following tale by my grandfather as I sat on his knee one sweltering summer afternoon in the house he built by the sea… It’s actually a famous Cherokee parable from Tennessee. An old man is teaching his grandson about life. ‘A fight is going on inside me,’ he explains to the boy. ‘It’s a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil to he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, arrogance, self-pity, resentment and ego. The other is good to he is joy, peace, love, hope, determination, humility, fortitude, compassion and truth. The same fight is going on inside you to and inside every other person, too’. The boy thinks about it for a minute and then asks his grandfather, ’ Which wolf will win?’. The old Cherokee smiles and replies simply: ‘The one you feed’ - Vassos Alexander. “Running Up That Hill”

The little things add up

This really resonated with me because it reflects a strongly held personal belief I have: it is the small things we think and do that have a tremendous impact on our circumstances, relationships and who we are.

And the little things pave the way for bigger things

A related but slightly different belief I hold is that the small, seemingly inconsequential things we do pave the way for our more significant acts. The name of this blog was initially “15 volts” as a reference to this. It’s a quote from a 2008 TED talk by Philip Zimbardo on the topic of good and evil. In the talk Zimbardo explains that the line between ’ good’ and ‘evil’ people is not fixed, using his experience of reading the ‘Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ while growing up in a tough neighbourhood:

When I read Robert Louis Stevenson that wasn’t fiction, the only question was: ‘what was in the juice?’. And, more importantly, that line between good and evil which privileged people like to think is fixed and impermeable to with them on the good side and the others on the bad side to I knew that line was movable and permeable - Philip Zimbardo “The psychology of evil”

Having watched the TED talk I went on to read Zimbardo’s book ‘The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil’ in which he provides an in-depth analysis of how most of us could be initiated into the ranks of evil doers. There’s a lot of great content in this book but I want to pull out two quotes which relate to this idea that the small things we do pave the way for future actions:

…be discouraged from venal sins and small transgressions, such as cheating, lying, gossiping, spreading rumours, lauging at racist or sexist jokes, teasing and bullying. They can become stepping stones to more serious falls from grace. They serve as mini facilitators for thinking and acting destructively against your fellow creatures - Philip Zimbardo “The Lucifer Effect”

But this is not all bad because you can easily flip these tendencies in ourselves for the good.

…as we know from dissonance theory, beliefs follow behaviour. Get people to perform good actions and they will generate the necessary underlying principles to justify them -Philip Zimbardo. The Lucifer Effect

Taking this back to the story of the wolves, we will not wish to flip flop between feeding both wolves. Once we’re feeding one regularly, we’ll want to continue doing so and to if this isn’t stretching the analogy too far to to give it bigger and better meals. Our actions are effectively setting us on a path or pointing us in a direction, and we tend to head in the direction we’re pointed. The point should be to ensure we’re pointed in a good direction and consider whether any of our thoughts and actions are consistent with that direction.

I know this is all a bit rambling. I’ve bashed this out really quickly with only a quick proof read.