Slideshow image

"There is little that can withstand a man who can conquer himself."
- Louis XIV

At Ahead of the Game, we show youth how to overcome obstacles in their lives. Often, this means overcoming distractions. Distractions are something that all of us are faced with at some point in our lives. When I'm faced with distraction, I like to remind myself of the story of the wolf.

I went on a hunting trip one time, and we saw a pack of wolves. One question that came up was, since they are some of the most dangerous animals in the forest, how can one capture a wolf?

See, wolves love the taste of blood. They also love to travel in packs. We wanted to ensure that we weren’t going to be attacked by the wolves so our team leader shared this method with us. In order to take down a wolf, you'll need to:

  1. Take a knife and stab a pig with it.
  2. Put the knife with the pig's blood into a freezer overnight so the blood freezes.
  3. Put the fresh pig's blood on the knife again and then bury the knife blade up in the snow.

The wolf has a keen sense of smell. Once it smells hot fresh blood, it will get excited and move towards what it thinks is a fresh kill. It loves the warm fresh blood and will start to lick the knife. As it licks the frozen blood underneath, eventually the wolf will lick off enough blood until it gets to the blade. Once it gets to the blade, it cuts its own tongue; the wolf is now tasting its own fresh blood. Nevertheless, it's still blood and the wolf cannot differentiate. The wolf doesn’t realize its tongue is cut so it keeps on licking, getting increasingly more excited.

At this point, either one of two things can happen:

Either the wolf will continue to lick and eventually bleed out, or it becomes an easy hunting target due to it being distracted with the bloody knife.

I say this story because a lot of us have big dreams, goals and aspirations, but we're also easily susceptible to distractions. We think we can dabble in distraction a little bit without letting it consume us. We say, "Well, checking my social media won't take long – no big deal." But then we find ourselves, little by little, going off on a much different path than what we set off to do. And it starts with small little things; but as you go deeper and deeper you find that these distractions become more and more consuming. They take you further from your vision. For some, these distractions can mean something that can eventually cost them their lives.

Whether it's allowing social media to take a hold of your real life or picking up the bottle to avoid doing something important, a distraction can pull you in until it's detrimental to the health of your vision.

So as you journey through life, take note of these little distractions. Take note of the things that take you off course and have the potential to to cripple you in the long run. They may taste good or gratify you right now, but in the end they may hurt you or kill your vision. So take note and stay away. You don’t want to keep on licking that knife, because it will only taste better and better until something forces you to stop. Let's not let that 'thing' be something negative. So stay on the lookout. Stay on the hunt. Stay on your grind, and persist until you succeed.

Don’t let the distractions get the best of you.

#GetAfterIt

 

-JH 

Like this post? Want to make a donation? Click here for more information on how you can get involved with AOTG!