Life is full of races to the bottom: some careers, businesses, communities, and activities that eventually became a competition for who’s willing to sacrifice more.
Jack Kent tells us the story of a little boy, Billy, who, one day, finds a dragon the size of a cat in his bedroom. Billy’s mother ignores it – after all, there is no such thing as a dragon. Day after day, the dragon keeps growing, ignored. One day, it grows so much that it wrecks Billy’s house with its size. Faced with a destroyed home, Billy’s mother acknowledges the dragon. Finally, it starts shrinking. At the end of the story, Billy’s mother asks: “Why did the dragon grow so big?” Billy answers: “I’m not sure, but I think it just wanted to be noticed.”
Problems grow to the size they need for us to acknowledge them.
There are many reasons for which problems appear. However, there is a single reason for which they grow: if we ignore them.
By acknowledging a problem and its consequences, the risks of letting it grow become clear and, therefore, urgent. You will be compelled to act immediately. Acknowledging problems is the first step toward solving them and regaining mental peace. Instead, if you ignore your problems, you deprive yourself of the very fuel you need to act.
The simple act of taking a pen and writing down the list of problems affecting you and the ways they negatively impact your life will often be all you need. If this is too much, choose a single issue and write about that one only. But do write about it. Simply thinking about it will not be enough. Your unconscious mind needs material proof that you acknowledged the problem and its consequences.
Note: this was an excerpt from my book “100 Truths You Will Learn Too Late” (paperback, eBook).
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