Be True to Who You Are
“One day’s life of a lion is preferable to hundred years of a jackal.”
- Tipu Sultan
Do you know what a jackal is? In the wild it is a member of the canine family found mostly in southern Africa, the Middle East and India. To me the jackal represents that nagging feeling that is always biting at my heels when I’m not being true to myself.
Our inner-self is this “jackal”. It can seem a harmless pup one minute and then all of a sudden it can viciously attack us when we get away from who we truly are.
Our “jackal” knows who we are. It knows what we know, what we believe, what we need and what we are capable of. When we get off our path, when we speak, write or in our actions, it is quick to bit at us. It’s a scavenger. It is looking for an easy meal. When we are not ourselves, we become weak and are an easy prey.
The more we try to ignore it, the faster our jackal begins circling us. When we keep getting away from our path, this hunter will begin to nip at us. When we become lost this carnivore will attack by taking huge chunks out of our psyche.
How does this happen? We usually don’t “intend” to get off of our path. In our daily lives we begin to venture off our path when we start to placate others in order to keep stress out of our life. We know they’re ideas don’t mesh with our beliefs, but we continue to get further off our path as we stop pursuing our goals and begin working to accomplish their goals. The jackal becomes fiercest when we follow those who are diametrically opposed to how we believe. We know it’s wrong, but we give up what is right because we have been told to “take one for the team”.
The signs of this cycle begin when we start feeling confused about why we are moving in a different direction. This is the sign that the jackal is circling us. When we really start having doubts, about our current direction, is when the scavenger is nipping at our heels. The bite comes when we see how much time we wasted chasing a bad idea or a flawed plan of attack.
It is simple for us to see the errors of our ways when we look back and ask, “How could I go along with something that I was so sure was going to fail?” Life is never clearer than in hindsight.
When this happens, we can do one of two things. We can give up and continue chasing the bad idea down the drain. Or, we can stop, get back on path, and as we nurse the scars that we got by allowing ourselves to get off our path, we can learn from it and become stronger.
Don’t be mad at the jackal. It’s just doing its job. It eats the weak and leaves more for those, who are strong enough to get back to work. It is up to us to call on the lion, that lives in all of us, to give us the strength to not stray off our path again.
Stay true to who you are. Heed the bark of the jackal. But be the lion when it comes to doing the right thing!
(From the Book of 300 Prompts: This sketch book was where I really started to strengthen my writing muscles. I wrote in this book from July 2016 until I finished the final topic in June 2020. I didn’t work from 1-300 but jumped from topic to topic. I wrote this entry on April 15, 2020. It is Prompt #21 Entitled: Jackal.)
