The Most Harmful Thing You're Doing To Yourself

If you got struck with an arrow, would you then turn around and shoot yourself with a second arrow?

This is a question from a Buddhist story that goes something like this. Imagine that you’ve been shot by an arrow. It sucks and it’s painful. But it’s already happened and there’s nothing you can do about it.

But then what happens is you turn around and you start overthinking, judging, and worrying about the first arrow. Your worry/fear about the first arrow is the second arrow, and it's just as painful as the first one. You've just shot yourself with a second arrow, and most of us engage in this type of self-inflicted pain ALL. THE. TIME.

Let me put this into practical, real-life context so it makes more sense:

Examples:

First arrow: You make a big mistake at work

Second arrow: You over analyze and overthink every little detail and tell yourself you’re going to get fired

First arrow: You drank/ate/smoked that thing you said you weren’t going to drink/eat/smoke

Second arrow: You beat yourself up for your lack of control and spend hours worrying about your “failure”

First arrow: Your roommate/partner leaves a pile of dirty dishes in the sink, again

Second arrow: You spend the rest of our day fuming at what an inconsiderate asshole s/he is, overwhelmed with resentment

The point is, bad things happen all the time. But these things are painful enough on their own. We make it worse by adding anger, judgement, guilt, self hate and overthinking to the situation. We constantly shoot ourselves with a second arrow.

The cool thing is, once you are aware of the second arrow, you can learn to DODGE it. You can acknowledge that something painful has happened, accept it, and act accordingly. But don’t don’t have to shoot yourself with the second arrow by imagining the worst case scenario or telling yourself you’re not good enough. For so many of us, this is where our suffering occurs.

So, for today, I want you to pay attention and look for that second arrow. And I leave you with this question from the Buddha himself.

“If you get struck by an arrow,

do you then shoot another arrow into yourself?”

Become aware of the second arrow. Catch yourself shooting it. The awareness of it’s futility and harm can sometimes be enough to wake us up to a new way of being.