The Boiling Deterioration
Adapting to a situation that causes us discomfort and staying in it is more common than we think. The slow deterioration, passes in an unnoticed and silent way to occupy our life if we do not realize it …
Stop to reflect for a moment and reflect on whether in some sphere of your life instead of evolving or growing, you really find yourself stagnant, even accompanied by some feeling of discomfort. Why do you continue? Today’s story may wake you up …
The Fable of the Confident Frog
“ Imagine a pot full of water, in which there is a frog inside. While it is swimming, the casserole is heating over low heat. Little by little the water warms up and the frog continues to swim, it is pleasant to him. The temperature continues to rise and the water is getting warmer, just hotter than the frog would like, but he still does not worry, despite the heat making him drowsy and somewhat fatigued.
As the temperature rises more, the frog already finds it unpleasant, but it finds itself without strength, so it resists and tries to adapt. It does nothing else. The temperature of the water continues to rise little by little, slowly but surely, until the moment when the frog ends up boiling and dies without having made the slightest effort to get out of the pot …
Surely if she had submerged herself in a pot at 50 degrees, she would have been safe herself with a single jump … “
Awesome, right? This fable by Olivier Clerc, a French writer and philosopher, shows a valuable teaching that can be used in various contexts. Surely when reading it, you have already imagined yours …
The silent deterioration
A deterioration, if it is very slow, goes unnoticed, without most of the time causing a reaction, be it opposition, rebellion, etc. Do you remember any situation or behavior of a person of this type? For sure YES.
It usually happens with health, in relationships, with the environment, in the social and work environment, that is, with what happens in our lives and above all, with the way we manage it and its possible consequences.
Perhaps as we do not perceive the deterioration quickly and directly, we are not aware of the possible consequences, preferring to remain in that situation; otherwise we would jump like a frog from the pot, escaping.
For example, the deterioration of a relationship is usually an accumulation of circumstances over time – such as silences, misunderstandings, assumptions, grudges – that are not given importance or have been commented on with authenticity and frankness.
Even sometimes we adapt to something that at first seems beneficial without shuffling other perspectives or alternatives: we settled without questioning if what we really want, deceiving ourselves with an unreal comfortable situation, avoiding and escaping from that which causes us discomfort.
Thus, when it manifests itself, it is so unpleasant that we have no choice but to raise awareness and try to solve it. But sometimes it is late or it is much more complicated than it would have been before. The effort required to solve or control the situation is so great that we collapse and end up boiled in the saucepan like a frog.
Silent adaptation to discomfort
When a change is introduced in our lives little by little, in a slow and subtle way, it escapes our consciousness, without being able to prepare us for its confrontation, giving an answer.
Just as a dangerous or uncomfortable situation can develop slowly, we can run out of resources to deal with it once we become aware. This usually happens to many people with the discomfort, when they realize that they have been living in it longer than they should and have gotten used to it.
Thus, the unpleasant consequences appear and we find ourselves weak before them. So it is necessary to be attentive, to be aware to be able to realize the presence of a pale deterioration but that can become aggressive with the passage of time.
All the things of value in our life need care, energy and effort, as well as ourselves in relation to what we want to achieve and our internal world.
The great danger of boiling ourselves is that as we do so, our resources and strategies also deteriorate. The faculties that allowed us to notice that deterioration have been altered.
So if we pay attention to what we live, we reflect and inquire into other visions, we will escape that benefit that the only thing that does us is boil us until we are left without any type of resources.
Bibliography used:
-Clerc, Olivier. (2007). The frog you didn’t know was boiled … and other life lessons . Madrid: Maeva.
