So in my latest session with my osteo we were talking and he told me this piece of advice which I found interesting and therefore decided to investigate further.
Based on an African proverb, my osteo said everyday I had a choice to either be a gazelle or a lion, I’ll quote the proverb below for your information:
“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle awakens. He has only one thought on his mind: To be able to run faster than the fastest lion. If he cannot, then he will be eaten.
Every morning in Africa a lion awakens. He has only one thought on his mind: To be able to run faster than the slowest gazelle. If he cannot, he will die of hunger.
Whether you choose to be a gazelle or a lion is of no consequence. It is enough to know that with the rising of the sun, you must run. And you must run faster than you did yesterday or you will die.
This is the race of life.”
Now, in the context my osteo was using it (as passed down from his father), it was used as motivation- for me every morning I wake up I can either choose to be a gazelle and be lazy, or I can be a lion and challenge myself to be better.
Now, as you can see from the proverb itself, that’s a bit of a bastardisation of it, but the intent behind it and the proverb are essentially the same.
Let us explore how.
As you can image, life is not a race despite every intention of factors outside our control. We are expected to be in a relationship by age X, married by age Y and have kids by age Z. Anything else is deemed inconsequential and if you don’t achieve these goals you are considered a failure.
But what happens if you don’t actually achieve them at those pre determined marks? What happens if you achieve them later or not at all? Are you still a failure?
Of course not!
Life is not a journey to compare yourself on- the only thing you need to be worried or concerned about, if you ask me, is your journey to be a better person and to be the best version of you as possible. Life will always through obstacles in your way, but it’s how you overcome them which shows to yourself how strong you are.
If you ask me, that is what this proverb is actually about- about your progress as a person. It doesn’t matter if you make big steps or small steps; the important thing is that you’re genuinely making progress going forward and not backwards. That’s not to sure you won’t go backwards- human nature is like that sometimes through illness or just simply bad things happen to good people. But if you’re making 95% steps forward with the occasional backwards, that is ok.
And that’s what I’m currently doing in my recovery. It’s funny how sometimes with the exercises that I and doing in osteo I sort of think to myself “this is insane”, but yet when I leave the treatment room and with the knowledge that my osteo is not there to watch my movements, i am doing the exact same things in real life without consciously thinking about it.
That is progress- I am making strides in the right direction because like the lion I am not willing to accept setbacks, I am running forward to achieve a better me.
It is funny how I’ve never heard of this proverb before speaking to my osteo, and now both the proverb itself and his interpretation of it are going to stick with me for quite a while.