Doing a Slow Boil

I’ve always heard (but have never tested out for the love of all creatures green and beyond) that if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, he’ll jump out.  BUT if you put him in a pot of cold water and slowly bring it to a boil, he’ll sit there and boil to death.  Apparently the change is so gradual, he doesn’t realize one’s even taking place. Sure, it’d be easy to say, “Dumb frog,” but we might want to bite our tongue somewhere between the D- and the -umb.  After all, are we that superior?

How many “slow boils” have consumed us in the past?  How many pretty much own us right now?  How many illnesses creep up on a person as they explain away the symptoms?  How many bad habits and/or undesirable character traits take root in our psyche so gradually that we don’t realize it until it’s too late?  If we were thrown in the middle of the situation all at once, we’d jump out….but the change is so gradual, we don’t realize one’s even taking place, until we’re boiling in it.

An Example From the Home Front:

I recently had bloodwork done and my doctor found that my thyroid medicine was no longer interested in doing its job.  What’s worse, it had been phoning it in for a long time.  But, smart girl that I am, I always attributed the symptoms (and now that I’m feeling better I realize just how strong some were) to something else.  I’d stayed up too late watching a movie…I’d gotten up too early to feed my impatient cats…The headaches?  Sinuses, of course.  Etc… after brilliant etc…  If I’d woke up one morning lacking the energy and feel-goodness that I’d had the day before, I’d have been in the doctor’s office before she got there.  But, like so many things in life, it progressed slllloooowwwllly.

If you have any physical complaints or concerns, see your doctor.  Even if it’s just a matter of feeling more tired than usual, don’t allow yourself to get used to the feeling. More times than not, our bodies are trying to tell us something, if we’d just listen.  A LOT of physical symptoms love to enter our lives via the slow boil - so watch out for them.

More Examples:

I expect that the same thing happens with bad traits.  They sneak up on a person.  What about the sweet-tempered young bride that begins to nag a little.  She doesn’t catch herself, so she nags more.  Before she even realizes that a transformation is taking place, she is nagging more than she isn’t nagging. There would have been a time she’d have been horrified to see herself like this, but over time it has slowly become a way of life for her.  She’s done a slow boil without even realizing it.  Her frog’s boiling.

What about the dad who begins to pick on every single thing his son does.  He plays his music too loud.  His bangs are too long. His top’s too black. He spends too much time working on his car.  He doesn’t get enough hours at work.  He doesn’t like the subjects he’s taking in school.  His girlfriend has three earring holes in one ear (when she’s around, that’s really all poor dad can think about).   The son can barely remember the fun guy Dad used to be - the one who taught him to throw a football like Elway, a baseball like Maddox, and a zinger like Pryor. The son would cry if he could see a video with the relationship the way it was and the way it is side by side.  Dad would cry a lot more.  Dad got accustomed to complaining - it became his identity.  “That’s what I do.  I find things that are wrong.”  His frog’s boiling.

Basically, we all have at least one frog in the pot. Something that has crept up on each of us and woven itself into the fabric that makes up our lives.  Something that, if we had seen coming, we’d have run away from. It’s not too late to run now!

Take a good, honest look at yourself - are you the person you’d have wanted to be 10 years ago?  If you were given a crystal ball THEN and could see yourself NOW, what would you cringe the most about?  More than likely, the cringe-worthy thing(s) came about courtesy of a slow boil.

Remedy?  Get your frog out of the pot and set him safely on the counter.  Then poke him in his haunches with a wooden spoon and watch him hop away.  Good riddance.