The story of the dragon and the gold.
I'm not going to tell you the story in itself because everybody knows this story.
The first step in understanding this story is if what you are doing isn't working,
You need to go where you haven't gone before.
Sometimes this is described in another way,
Whereas what you want to find is where you least want to look.
In the story of the dragon and the gold,
We all know that the dragon will harm you if you go there.
But,
On the flip side,
That's where the gold is.
And in many ways here we have the paradoxical reality of life in so many ways.
One would be stupid not to be fearful as one goes to the dragon's lair,
For it is incredibly dangerous and is going to push you to your absolute limit.
But if you were not pushed to your limit,
How could you ever get the gold?
Have you noticed how the best lessons in life come from the biggest mistakes?
The gold and the dragon,
Therefore,
Must come together.
It's such a strange idea,
But it seems so accurate for life.
So what happens if you don't go to the dragon's lair?
We've actually seen this story in Jonah and the Whale.
This is a story from the Old Testament,
Where Jonah was an Israelite who God had called to be a prophet,
But who refused to accept his divine mission and left on a sea voyage instead.
God then raised a huge storm as a sign of great anger towards Jonah.
The sailors,
Realizing that Jonah's disobedience had caused the storm,
Threw him overboard in an attempt to save the ship.
Jonah was saved from drowning when he was sold by a whale or a great fish.
He lived for three days inside this creature,
After which he was vomited up and put on dry land.
In this case,
His life had been spared,
And he then took up the mission that he was meant to.
So this story is telling us,
In many ways,
About what happens if you don't follow you the path,
You don't take the challenge,
You don't go on an adventure.
And here,
It tells us that seas can become very stormy and pull you down deep,
Where you'll suffer for a period of time.
And if you're lucky,
You get spat back out,
And you're given another chance.
This is a very interesting story,
But the question comes down to here is,
If we're looking at the whole idea of going to the dragon's lair to get the gold,
What happens if you're afraid to go?
Because is this not the case?
This is the problem.
It's everybody knows that there's gold there and I want to go,
But I'm afraid to go.
The irony here is that we as humans with the brain,
That is conscious to some degree,
Understand life.
And we understand the ultimate reason to be fearful,
That we are highly vulnerable and we can die.
How can you not be fearful of this?
So in this case,
A conscious,
Non-naive human being,
Therefore would need to make a conscious decision to move forward despite the risks and the dangers.
It is very interesting to note that some psychologists,
Such as Jordan Peterson,
Talk about this as the secret to a good life.
So I'll reiterate,
The secret to a good life,
According to some psychologists like Jordan Peterson,
Is to make a conscious decision to move forward despite the risks and dangers.
He explains that the clinical literature on this is very clear.
What you do with people who are afraid is slowly expose them to what they're afraid of.
Interestingly,
What the clinical literature indicates is that one never gets less afraid,
But instead becomes more courageous.
The key point here is that if the fear dissipated,
All that it meant was that the fear wasn't real,
That it wasn't actually something dangerous.
Instead,
Though,
It isn't the case,
And one still is aware of the fear and still aware of the danger,
But instead has the courage to still go forth knowing that it is dangerous.
This is a very important hidden point amongst this,
And the hidden point here is that one must voluntarily take on the challenge,
Not involuntarily.
If one does this by their own choice,
The whole psychophysiological system used to deal with the stressor is one of approach and challenge,
And not the system of defense,
Aggression,
And withdrawal.
One system is highly positive,
One system is highly negative.
The negative system is very much akin to a system of a prey animal,
Which of course is incredibly difficult to deal with when it kicks in.
Here once again we find these amazing ancient stories that talk about this.
One of them is the story of the Epic of Gilgamesh,
Where Gilgamesh and Enkadu go to see Khumbaba in the Cedar Forest.
Here the world's greatest warriors are shown and portrayed as having paralyzing fear physically and mentally,
But through their courage and their own choice to take on that fear,
They get through it.
So here we learn that even the greatest warriors on the Earth still have fear,
But the way they dealt with it was through courage and choosing to do it.
What is interesting about this is just as with Hercules and taking on many many challenges,
We can slowly build up a tonic for this fear,
By which you start to build confidence and feel good about yourself,
And see yourself in a non-naive way taking on challenges and being brave.
How healthy is this for your mind and your body?
