Don't be the Frog
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Don't be the Frog
take charge of your life ---- story of the frog in boiling water
remind yourself that you are too smart to be complacent about a steadily deteriorating situation.
you’ve no doubt heard the story of the frog in boiling water. If you drop a frog into boiling water, it immediately jumps out (or so the story goes). However, if you put a frog in a pot of room-temperature water, and then bring the water to a boil very, very slowly, the frog will stay in the water until it dies. It’s an odd experiment that i have no intention of testing in my kitchen, but it’s an apt metaphor for how people sometimes deal with slowly deteriorating situations.
When we are confronted with an abrupt negative change, we tend to react immediately and decisively. Coming in contact with a flame will cause us to pull away instantly to avoid getting burned. We don’t think about it; we just react. Yet we will sit in the sun for hours and get badly burned. We know full well that we’re getting burned, but we tend to sit there anyway, because there is no instantaneous sensation to trigger a decision to get out of harm’s way.
It’s this absence of decision triggers that causes people to miss opportunities or to get into trouble that could have been avoided. Fortunately, being smarter than frogs, we have the ability to create decision triggers for our own good. If we’re sunbathing, for example, we might place an alarm clock deliberately out of reach and set it to go off every half hour. When it goes off, we have to get up, go over to it, and turn it off. This triggers a decision: “should i expose myself to another half hour of sun, or have i had enough?” without the clock, deliberately placed at an inconvenient distance and annoying us every 30 minutes, we are likely to keep telling ourselves, “just a few minutes more,” and then a few minutes more after that, and so on, until it’s too late. The “time to get out of the sun” decision trigger arrives the following morning when we turn over in bed and wince in pain. By then, it’s too late to avoid the trouble.
The frog-in-boiling-water syndrome, as i like to call it, can arise in other, more serious, situations throughout our lives where we willfully ignore an increasingly dangerous situation, telling ourselves that we’ll do something about it “soon.”
take putting on weight as an example. Nobody decides to get fat, yet many people will just keep putting on more and more weight without doing anything about it. They keep telling themselves, “i’m going to lose some weight soon.” similarly, people don’t make a conscious decision to keep smoking until they get lung cancer. They tell themselves, “i can stop anytime, and i will, but another day, or week, or month won’t matter.” so they remain like the frog in the pot, slowly burning up their lungs.
The frog-in-boiling-water syndrome doesn’t apply just to self-destructive behaviors. It can trap people facing important career decisions. This is the case for people who stubbornly remain in a job or occupation that isn’t satisfying or isn’t offering sufficient opportunities. Like the simmering frog, they stay where they are, telling themselves that things might improve while knowing they won’t, instead of changing employers or acquiring new professional skills. They may complain about the situation to others, but they never do anything about it until they find themselves trapped in a miserable, dead-end job, or worse, they lose their job without any updated skills to go forward in a more successful direction.
People stuck in deteriorating or stagnating relationships also fall prey to the frog-in-boiling-water syndrome. They are unhappy, but they just go on being unhappy without deciding to do anything to improve the relationship or to get out of it. Just like the frog, they stay where they are as the water slowly reaches the boiling point.
This syndrome can also trap people who are not in a relationship but would like to be. They do not take any action to help themselves meet someone, and the years pass. Slowly they lose their “window of opportunity” to meet a person who might become a lifetime partner.
Some people even believe that the frog-in-boiling-water syndrome applies to the way a society can ignore critical decisions. For example, we may be gradually depleting our limited resources without making any conscious decisions about replenishing them or slowing the depletion. Instead, we’re letting the situation boil away until it becomes too late to preserve a sustainable environment. We may be creating global warming, yet we ignore or reject any solutions until our polar ice caps melt away and we find our coastlines submerged. Likewise, as the economic gap between the lower and upper classes increases, we do nothing to avert the inevitable ramifications from such a gap. We sit in the water of our own apathy and denial without taking action.
Don’t be like our friend the simmering frog. You are smarter than the frog.
Step back from time to time and take stock of situations in your life such as your health, your relationships, your career or job, your business and your investments. Do this regularly. You might take stock on new year’s day, your birthday, or every three months. Set that alarm clock, and put it someplace where you’ll have to get up and go over to turn it off. Remind yourself that you are too smart to be complacent about a steadily deteriorating situation.
Moreover, if you think a friend is falling into the boiling-frog syndrome, share this story. It might save a life.
Taken from
decide better! For a better life
improve your life through better decisions
by
michael e. Mcgrath [chapter 1]
remind yourself that you are too smart to be complacent about a steadily deteriorating situation.
you’ve no doubt heard the story of the frog in boiling water. If you drop a frog into boiling water, it immediately jumps out (or so the story goes). However, if you put a frog in a pot of room-temperature water, and then bring the water to a boil very, very slowly, the frog will stay in the water until it dies. It’s an odd experiment that i have no intention of testing in my kitchen, but it’s an apt metaphor for how people sometimes deal with slowly deteriorating situations.
When we are confronted with an abrupt negative change, we tend to react immediately and decisively. Coming in contact with a flame will cause us to pull away instantly to avoid getting burned. We don’t think about it; we just react. Yet we will sit in the sun for hours and get badly burned. We know full well that we’re getting burned, but we tend to sit there anyway, because there is no instantaneous sensation to trigger a decision to get out of harm’s way.
It’s this absence of decision triggers that causes people to miss opportunities or to get into trouble that could have been avoided. Fortunately, being smarter than frogs, we have the ability to create decision triggers for our own good. If we’re sunbathing, for example, we might place an alarm clock deliberately out of reach and set it to go off every half hour. When it goes off, we have to get up, go over to it, and turn it off. This triggers a decision: “should i expose myself to another half hour of sun, or have i had enough?” without the clock, deliberately placed at an inconvenient distance and annoying us every 30 minutes, we are likely to keep telling ourselves, “just a few minutes more,” and then a few minutes more after that, and so on, until it’s too late. The “time to get out of the sun” decision trigger arrives the following morning when we turn over in bed and wince in pain. By then, it’s too late to avoid the trouble.
The frog-in-boiling-water syndrome, as i like to call it, can arise in other, more serious, situations throughout our lives where we willfully ignore an increasingly dangerous situation, telling ourselves that we’ll do something about it “soon.”
take putting on weight as an example. Nobody decides to get fat, yet many people will just keep putting on more and more weight without doing anything about it. They keep telling themselves, “i’m going to lose some weight soon.” similarly, people don’t make a conscious decision to keep smoking until they get lung cancer. They tell themselves, “i can stop anytime, and i will, but another day, or week, or month won’t matter.” so they remain like the frog in the pot, slowly burning up their lungs.
The frog-in-boiling-water syndrome doesn’t apply just to self-destructive behaviors. It can trap people facing important career decisions. This is the case for people who stubbornly remain in a job or occupation that isn’t satisfying or isn’t offering sufficient opportunities. Like the simmering frog, they stay where they are, telling themselves that things might improve while knowing they won’t, instead of changing employers or acquiring new professional skills. They may complain about the situation to others, but they never do anything about it until they find themselves trapped in a miserable, dead-end job, or worse, they lose their job without any updated skills to go forward in a more successful direction.
People stuck in deteriorating or stagnating relationships also fall prey to the frog-in-boiling-water syndrome. They are unhappy, but they just go on being unhappy without deciding to do anything to improve the relationship or to get out of it. Just like the frog, they stay where they are as the water slowly reaches the boiling point.
This syndrome can also trap people who are not in a relationship but would like to be. They do not take any action to help themselves meet someone, and the years pass. Slowly they lose their “window of opportunity” to meet a person who might become a lifetime partner.
Some people even believe that the frog-in-boiling-water syndrome applies to the way a society can ignore critical decisions. For example, we may be gradually depleting our limited resources without making any conscious decisions about replenishing them or slowing the depletion. Instead, we’re letting the situation boil away until it becomes too late to preserve a sustainable environment. We may be creating global warming, yet we ignore or reject any solutions until our polar ice caps melt away and we find our coastlines submerged. Likewise, as the economic gap between the lower and upper classes increases, we do nothing to avert the inevitable ramifications from such a gap. We sit in the water of our own apathy and denial without taking action.
Don’t be like our friend the simmering frog. You are smarter than the frog.
Step back from time to time and take stock of situations in your life such as your health, your relationships, your career or job, your business and your investments. Do this regularly. You might take stock on new year’s day, your birthday, or every three months. Set that alarm clock, and put it someplace where you’ll have to get up and go over to turn it off. Remind yourself that you are too smart to be complacent about a steadily deteriorating situation.
Moreover, if you think a friend is falling into the boiling-frog syndrome, share this story. It might save a life.
Taken from
decide better! For a better life
improve your life through better decisions
by
michael e. Mcgrath [chapter 1]
Member
Join Date: May 2013
Location: US East Coast
Posts: 1,972
Sometimes we stay in the pot because we don't know how to get out of it. My latest plan involves meeting new people and doing new things in the hopes that something will "click" and I will finally be able to find my way out of the pot.
Realising my life
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Dorset, England
Posts: 3,656
Frogs and toads are my very favourite creatures 
and I couldn't bear to think of them slowly boiling to death - I don't want that for myself either! Thank you so much for posting this, Dee. There is definitely an area of my life where I'm simmering in the pot - today will be the day when I start climbing out xx
and I couldn't bear to think of them slowly boiling to death - I don't want that for myself either! Thank you so much for posting this, Dee. There is definitely an area of my life where I'm simmering in the pot - today will be the day when I start climbing out xx
Member
Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: Midwestern U.S.
Posts: 33
This is great, Dee - thank you!
The simmering pot analogy is so spot on and highlights exactly why addiction is so deadly. If we were on the edge of a cliff, or confronted by a wild animal, or saw a car coming at us, we would immediately try avoid danger by taking action. But alcohol and other substances lull us to sleep.
Some of us wake up and avoid the peril. Others aren't so lucky.
May we all be the former and not the latter.
The simmering pot analogy is so spot on and highlights exactly why addiction is so deadly. If we were on the edge of a cliff, or confronted by a wild animal, or saw a car coming at us, we would immediately try avoid danger by taking action. But alcohol and other substances lull us to sleep.
Some of us wake up and avoid the peril. Others aren't so lucky.
May we all be the former and not the latter.
Member
Join Date: May 2014
Location: liverpool, england
Posts: 1,708
hmm why i am so tempted to try this experiment out just to prove to myself that the frog would sit there and die ?
dont worry i wouldnt do it but thats how my brain works i need proof.
but if its true and the frog will sit there dying and not try to save itself then its shows a madness that i can identify with when i look back at my life as a drinking alcoholic
good post and give me something to think about : ) as i am now convinced the frog would try to get out as that water got to hot ? lol
dont worry i wouldnt do it but thats how my brain works i need proof.
but if its true and the frog will sit there dying and not try to save itself then its shows a madness that i can identify with when i look back at my life as a drinking alcoholic
good post and give me something to think about : ) as i am now convinced the frog would try to get out as that water got to hot ? lol
Member
Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 10,912
A well-articulated and very truthful message - thank you, Dee.
To me, it also represents how fear can sometimes save us (the startled frog dropped into boiling water escaping driven by shock) and other times paralyze and destroy us in a slow downward spiral. It also highlights the fearful resistance to change in relation to getting better and seeking constructive, healthy, healing opportunities in life that we very much desire but for a variety of reasons won't act on them until too late.
To me, this story is a great metaphor for how fear is certainly one of the the most powerful emotions, in many different ways.
To me, it also represents how fear can sometimes save us (the startled frog dropped into boiling water escaping driven by shock) and other times paralyze and destroy us in a slow downward spiral. It also highlights the fearful resistance to change in relation to getting better and seeking constructive, healthy, healing opportunities in life that we very much desire but for a variety of reasons won't act on them until too late.
To me, this story is a great metaphor for how fear is certainly one of the the most powerful emotions, in many different ways.
EndGame
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 4,677
Nice, Dee, very nice. An apt metaphor for misery tolerance and an excellent analysis by the author of the process of turning our will and our lives over to fear. (My interpretation.)
I would endow the frog with a level of consciousness that it may or may not enjoy. Why does the frog jump in the pot in the first place? Is the water inviting? Is it the safety that the pot offers, in part due to its concealing attributes? The solitude? An attempt at getting away from the daily rigors of life in the pond? Or just to give it a try?
The pot itself clearly offers some obvious benefits for the frog, otherwise it would simply leave, with our without boiling water. But the frog stays, happy (or at least content) with his new surroundings. The frog eventually gets used to -- and then relies on -- the pot and everything it has to offer, to the point that it would be extremely difficult for him to leave. Maybe it even provides a new home, a place of safety, a retreat, along with the benefits of a non-competitive and therefore stress-free environment?
Yet the temperature slowly and regularly continues to rise, comfortably at first, convincing the frog that he made a good choice, with the frog eventually becoming complacent relative to any potential danger. "This is such a great place! Why would anyone ever want to leave? I've hit the jackpot!" The attachment now solidly formed, the value of the pot rises dramatically, and the frog can no longer conceive of living anywhere else, the pot now dictating the frog's lifestyle. The pot remains safe and inviting, and the frog no longer needs to deal with the challenges and pressures of the pond.
Yet again, the pot continues to heat up, and its other limitations start becoming more apparent. If he leaves the pot, how can he be sure that the pot and all its benefits will be there when he returns? Will he be safe if he ventures away from the pot, or will he become a more obvious prey? What if -- if he is able to return -- the pot changes, and is no longer as inviting as it once was? The risk is too great, so he stays, despite the limitations on movements, experience, food sources, social diversity and interactions, and the near-complete isolation. After all, the pot is the safest place he's ever known, and now there is no way he'll ever leave despite his new-found though unwanted awareness of the pot's formidable limitations, which ultimately only add to the frog's discomfort, and which drastically reduce his opportunities to be transformed into a handsome prince. He becomes simultaneously content and disturbed that he is doomed to be nothing more than a lowly frog, alienated and isolated from all other frogs -- and all other creatures who inhabit his long-forgotten pond -- but at least he his safe. Besides, our frog was always something of a rebel in his own mind, so he enjoys the added satisfaction of sticking it to the other pond inhabitants by his new lifestyle choice, not at all aware that they've long since forgotten all about him and never gave a thought to where he's gone or to his virtually nonexistent past contributions to life in the pond. He may well live out his years in croaking desperation, but at least no one and nothing can hurt him.
The frog has effectively written the final chapter of his life but is so fearful of leaving the pot that he cannot -- will not -- see this. In return for a life marked by loneliness, emotional suffering, social isolation and mounting despair, he's accepted a false sense of safety, and a seemingly rock-solid guarantee that he will not suffer from the increasingly terrifying challenges (in his mind) that living a fuller life inevitably brings. He is both profoundly and impotently convinced that his present choices will leave him safe from abandonment, betrayal, unplanned misfortune and the failures necessary to succeed in life. He will never achieve greatness -- even mediocrity is now out of his reach -- but at least he is safe. The best he can hope for is a dissection plate in a classroom for those who take his life much less seriously than even he.
Meanwhile, and in no small measure due to his increasing paranoia as a result of his isolation, the frog is taken to embellish his erstwhile life in the pond. Instead of being asked to share a lilypad while relaxing during his time in the pond, his distortion of memory tells him that he was violently removed from his "spot," and that the frogs and other life forms in the pond were all conspiring to get him. They were his constant tormentors, whose singular goal in life was to make him miserable. "It's all their fault, and they'll pay dearly by my absence! If it weren't for them, I would never have had to find the safety of the pot in the first place!" Yet no one truly cared, even noticed, when he left.
As time goes on, the pot becomes increasingly uncomfortable for the frog. Not only is he isolated, alone, experiencing unlimited and unbearable sameness each and every day and in each and every direction in which he turns his view, but the temperature is rising noticeable, and he is no longer as comfortable as he once was. The pot is beginning to turn against him. But he endures. After all, this is all he knows, and he yet remains safe from the dangers beyond the pot. Or so his intractable denial tells him. He again adjusts to his misery, and paints a rosy picture of his ongoing suffering. "I don't like it here as much as I used to, but at least it's better than where I was!" Terror has cast its final vote, and fear wins in a landslide. Part of him wants to leave, but he tells himself, "I should try something different, maybe take a break from this place for a time, but I'm much too busy enjoying the barren and unchanging view here. And what will the pot do without me? No, I'm the landlord here now, and I need to tend to my property. If I were to live, even for a short time, everything would go to pot." (Pun not intended, though completely irresistible, nonetheless. My apologies.)
Finally, the frog realizes that he is dying, that the safe place that he at first discovered, then warmly embraced only a few minutes ago, is killing him. The fear that originally brought him to the pot has long since replaced any capacity for courage or initiative on his part. His only hope is to survive death. And though he understands on some level the folly of his thinking, surviving death is the only thing he has left to live for, so why bother? The effort is no longer worth any possible rewards that have slowly faded, now completely out of view, from his consciousness. The frog dies, and no one sheds a tear. What seemed like a lifetime to the frog only existed over the span of only a few minutes, each of which increased his experience of a living hell that seemed to go on forever.
No one attended the frog's funeral, if only because there was no funeral to be had. The frog died broken, alone, and emotionally crippled. The trip to his final resting place was expedited by a toilet bowl where he was delivered by the pot's true owner, a fitting end for one who embraces fear, and who defers and then forfeits life for the presumed safety of avoiding the very pains and suffering that would have allowed him to enhance and sustain a fuller life in all its contradictory, often unpleasant, shades. Just as was his final deliverance, his life was never truly his at all.
I would endow the frog with a level of consciousness that it may or may not enjoy. Why does the frog jump in the pot in the first place? Is the water inviting? Is it the safety that the pot offers, in part due to its concealing attributes? The solitude? An attempt at getting away from the daily rigors of life in the pond? Or just to give it a try?
The pot itself clearly offers some obvious benefits for the frog, otherwise it would simply leave, with our without boiling water. But the frog stays, happy (or at least content) with his new surroundings. The frog eventually gets used to -- and then relies on -- the pot and everything it has to offer, to the point that it would be extremely difficult for him to leave. Maybe it even provides a new home, a place of safety, a retreat, along with the benefits of a non-competitive and therefore stress-free environment?
Yet the temperature slowly and regularly continues to rise, comfortably at first, convincing the frog that he made a good choice, with the frog eventually becoming complacent relative to any potential danger. "This is such a great place! Why would anyone ever want to leave? I've hit the jackpot!" The attachment now solidly formed, the value of the pot rises dramatically, and the frog can no longer conceive of living anywhere else, the pot now dictating the frog's lifestyle. The pot remains safe and inviting, and the frog no longer needs to deal with the challenges and pressures of the pond.
Yet again, the pot continues to heat up, and its other limitations start becoming more apparent. If he leaves the pot, how can he be sure that the pot and all its benefits will be there when he returns? Will he be safe if he ventures away from the pot, or will he become a more obvious prey? What if -- if he is able to return -- the pot changes, and is no longer as inviting as it once was? The risk is too great, so he stays, despite the limitations on movements, experience, food sources, social diversity and interactions, and the near-complete isolation. After all, the pot is the safest place he's ever known, and now there is no way he'll ever leave despite his new-found though unwanted awareness of the pot's formidable limitations, which ultimately only add to the frog's discomfort, and which drastically reduce his opportunities to be transformed into a handsome prince. He becomes simultaneously content and disturbed that he is doomed to be nothing more than a lowly frog, alienated and isolated from all other frogs -- and all other creatures who inhabit his long-forgotten pond -- but at least he his safe. Besides, our frog was always something of a rebel in his own mind, so he enjoys the added satisfaction of sticking it to the other pond inhabitants by his new lifestyle choice, not at all aware that they've long since forgotten all about him and never gave a thought to where he's gone or to his virtually nonexistent past contributions to life in the pond. He may well live out his years in croaking desperation, but at least no one and nothing can hurt him.
The frog has effectively written the final chapter of his life but is so fearful of leaving the pot that he cannot -- will not -- see this. In return for a life marked by loneliness, emotional suffering, social isolation and mounting despair, he's accepted a false sense of safety, and a seemingly rock-solid guarantee that he will not suffer from the increasingly terrifying challenges (in his mind) that living a fuller life inevitably brings. He is both profoundly and impotently convinced that his present choices will leave him safe from abandonment, betrayal, unplanned misfortune and the failures necessary to succeed in life. He will never achieve greatness -- even mediocrity is now out of his reach -- but at least he is safe. The best he can hope for is a dissection plate in a classroom for those who take his life much less seriously than even he.
Meanwhile, and in no small measure due to his increasing paranoia as a result of his isolation, the frog is taken to embellish his erstwhile life in the pond. Instead of being asked to share a lilypad while relaxing during his time in the pond, his distortion of memory tells him that he was violently removed from his "spot," and that the frogs and other life forms in the pond were all conspiring to get him. They were his constant tormentors, whose singular goal in life was to make him miserable. "It's all their fault, and they'll pay dearly by my absence! If it weren't for them, I would never have had to find the safety of the pot in the first place!" Yet no one truly cared, even noticed, when he left.
As time goes on, the pot becomes increasingly uncomfortable for the frog. Not only is he isolated, alone, experiencing unlimited and unbearable sameness each and every day and in each and every direction in which he turns his view, but the temperature is rising noticeable, and he is no longer as comfortable as he once was. The pot is beginning to turn against him. But he endures. After all, this is all he knows, and he yet remains safe from the dangers beyond the pot. Or so his intractable denial tells him. He again adjusts to his misery, and paints a rosy picture of his ongoing suffering. "I don't like it here as much as I used to, but at least it's better than where I was!" Terror has cast its final vote, and fear wins in a landslide. Part of him wants to leave, but he tells himself, "I should try something different, maybe take a break from this place for a time, but I'm much too busy enjoying the barren and unchanging view here. And what will the pot do without me? No, I'm the landlord here now, and I need to tend to my property. If I were to live, even for a short time, everything would go to pot." (Pun not intended, though completely irresistible, nonetheless. My apologies.)
Finally, the frog realizes that he is dying, that the safe place that he at first discovered, then warmly embraced only a few minutes ago, is killing him. The fear that originally brought him to the pot has long since replaced any capacity for courage or initiative on his part. His only hope is to survive death. And though he understands on some level the folly of his thinking, surviving death is the only thing he has left to live for, so why bother? The effort is no longer worth any possible rewards that have slowly faded, now completely out of view, from his consciousness. The frog dies, and no one sheds a tear. What seemed like a lifetime to the frog only existed over the span of only a few minutes, each of which increased his experience of a living hell that seemed to go on forever.
No one attended the frog's funeral, if only because there was no funeral to be had. The frog died broken, alone, and emotionally crippled. The trip to his final resting place was expedited by a toilet bowl where he was delivered by the pot's true owner, a fitting end for one who embraces fear, and who defers and then forfeits life for the presumed safety of avoiding the very pains and suffering that would have allowed him to enhance and sustain a fuller life in all its contradictory, often unpleasant, shades. Just as was his final deliverance, his life was never truly his at all.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 10,912
^Very cool, EndGame! I really like this type of exercise myself: take a story with highly symbolic elements and infuse my own analysis and interpretation into my version of the tale. I've done this all the time when drunk because that's what came most naturally locked up in a room with a computer... and now sober as a therapeutic exercise.
You could also write one with an alternate ending: what happens if the frog overcomes his fear before the final stage. And what happens to pot owner then?
You could also write one with an alternate ending: what happens if the frog overcomes his fear before the final stage. And what happens to pot owner then?
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