Frog in boiling water

Do you know about the “frog in boiling water” metaphor?

Here’s how it goes:

If a frog jumps into vessel of boiling water, it will sense the pain and immediately jump out. But if it gets in a vessel of room-temperature water, where heat gradually turns up to a boil, then the frog will continue to adjust its body temperature until it loses all the strength to jump out and dies.

This, of course, is an oversimplified story to teach a powerful lesson. The lesson is that the enemy of ‘good’ is not ‘bad.’ But rather it is ‘fine.’

We all behave like the frog at some point in our lives. We have heightened awareness about an unacceptable situation and can take immediate corrective action. But when the dread gradually creeps up on us, we tend to accept and adjust. This can happen in cases of health, finances, personal relationships, and at work.

Once we start to normalise the sub-optimal, we weaken our ability to take necessary restorative action when needed; and to rehabilitate ourselves before it is too late.

We must be at guard about accepting mediocrity through weekly or monthly reflections. We can start by asking ourselves a simple question: is [the key aspect of our life] in better or worse position than where it should be or where it was at the time of last reflection?