What follows is a Cherokee folktale that illustrates how the human conscience has two parts that fight against you and each other.
An old chief was guiding his grandson about life. He said, “There is a fight between two wolves happening in each of us. One is evil because he is filled with deceit, anger, envy, sadness, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, hate, and hubris. He wants you to fail and believe that you are so worthless that you give up.”
The old man continued. “The other wolf is good because he has joy, truth, peace, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, generosity, compassion, and faith. He wants you to succeed and protect yourself against dangers.”
The boy asked, “Which wolf wins the fight?”
“The one you feed.”
The chief advised his grandson that whichever wolf you feed is the one that wins. What do the wolves eat? Your attention feeds them. Therefore, you must decide which wolf to pay attention to.
Interpretation
In my interpretation, the relationship between the two wolves starts as adversarial because it is described as a fight. The folktale may imply that you choose one wolf to feed. By painting one wolf “evil”, it may suggest that you mustn’t feed it lest you become “evil”, or more aptly, negative. It hints to us that your attention should be given only to the positive wolf, leaving the negative wolf to starve to death or lose the fight. However, that act is a cruel one.
Though the negative wolf is filled with uncomfortable things, it is still a part of you. If you feed both the positive and negative wolf, they grow in equal measure. You establish a balanced mind, one that listens to guidance from assertive and peaceful voices equally. That’s because life is not just positive all the time, and there will be times when the negative wolf will serve better. If you listen to both sides of the story, you get a better understanding of the events.