The Whip

Everyone carries a whip in some way, even if they don’t realise that they do. It’s human to beat yourself over a mistake, just as it’s human to call yourself names or get worked up over nothing. When under pressure or duress we are programmed to be negative, to attack. We seek either to blame the world around us or ourselves. We know that no good can truly come from this, but the mind is cunning—it knows your weak points and where to find them.

Like a fine wine, we can get better with age (I don’t mean sticking someone in a cellar and leaving them there for ten years). With self-awareness comes self-knowledge and eventually you realise yourself. You stop reacting to the critical mind and begin to question what before you may have simply accepted. You start looking to set the record straight, to get on an even keel with your greatest obstruction; yourself. The mind, like anything else, must be nurtured and tended to. It is yours to tend.

I have always performed better under adversity. Without clear focus or a sense of purpose I can feel divided, conflicted. I wear a smile, but inside I’m fighting myself and wrestling for clarity. At my most intense, I would prefer crocodiles. I don’t let this affect others, I still keep the fun and games going for them. I still feel the joy, the laughter—but the whip is there, ready to crack its blow. Sometimes this is necessary. It helps me to shed skins, to not get complacent or think too much of myself. I welcome the lesson in diffidence, the opportunity for meekness.

I realise the whip is there to make me a better person. It’s a weapon only for myself, not others. It understands that we do not gain from sniping at others or sulking over our misfortune. The more we go through, the more we understand complaining does no good. So often, a situation may not be your fault or anyone else’s, it is just a situation. And when others are to blame, do you feel revived after a shouting match, or drained? Confrontation has its moments, but in the end there can only ever be one result. Pain, regret.

Like anything else, you can have too much of something. You can walk a mile, run a marathon or just keep running. I’ve seen Forrest Gump, and I get it. I know why he just kept running for three years. You can spend all your time going in circles, trapped in your own maze of thinking. Underneath, there’s always the wiser being telling you what is true, what you truly are. It’s easy to drown this voice out, but not completely. You are always your best guide, the only antidote to your struggles. Take away your worries and the world with its demands and you can find you are everything you have ever needed. You must only be still and listen.

I now must also listen. I may wrestle, but to what cause? It’s like picking at a scab and expecting it not to itch. You have to turn down the temperature sometimes and give yourself room to breathe. If it’s too hot, you get in the shade. Okay, now I’m just listing a bunch of terrible analogies but you get the point. Never wish to be rid of the whip—it is there to teach you love and humility. Just maybe learn the difference between repentance and suffering. I don’t mean this in a religious way, or mean to say you’ve done anything wrong.

Without the whip, would you still be you? But just like you, the whip must transform and evolve itself. It must lose its spikes and its spite and become not a weapon but a friend. A friend that doesn’t always tell you what you want to hear, but what you need.