Which Wolf Will Win?

I love this story which I ran across again in Rutger Bregman’s impressive book entitled, “Humankind.”
 
An old man says to his grandson: “There’s a fight going on inside me. It’s a terrible fight between two wolves. One is bad—angry, greedy, jealous, arrogant, and cowardly. The other is good—peaceful, loving, modest, generous, honest, and trustworthy. These two wolves are also fighting within you, and inside every other person, too.”
 
After a moment, the boy asks, “Which wolf will win?”
 
The old man smiles: “The one you feed.”
 
All of us can identify with the presence of the two wolves! And all of us know how quickly the bad wolf can leap out. We’re feeding it every time we let it out. The more we feed it, the more it defines us.
 
So how do we control these inclinations within us?
 
When the old man was asked this question of which one wins, he didn’t answer with a long lecture or suggest an arduous process.
 
He smiled.
 
Nothing is more powerful than a smile in constraining the bad wolf and feeding the good one. And the smile leaves fewer teeth marks!
 
--Landon Saunders