What is The Boiling Frog Syndrome?
If you take a frog and throw it into boiling water, it will jump out. But when you throw it into cold water and slowly increase the temperature, the frog doesn't jump out of the water, because it is as if saying to itself “Although it’s hot, it's still doable..." - and eventually it gets cooked.
People are exactly the same.
Most often people say to themselves "it's still not so bad, I can prevail" until they "boil" in suffering... They keep pushing the boundaries of what is bearable, and some when they at last realise the reality of things, it's often too late.
It concerns various aspects, like family, intimate or work relationships or overall satisfaction or dissatisfaction in life.
People do not even realise that they are in such a situation.
For example we don't enjoy our job, our work, but it's still doable and we put up with it, because of money, responsibility, fear, social construct… etc.
We are not completely satisfied in the relationship, but we have already invested a lot of time and energy in it. Or we are afraid of being alone and think that we will never find someone else. Or, we think nobody else will want us … so we stay.
We visit our family, because we think we have to, but they criticise us, humiliate us, and we always leave exhausted, but somehow we put up with it, since it's family.
We have friends who are constantly negative, grumpy and dump all their worries on us, and they always just take and never give back. We feel unappreciated, criticised, manipulated and we do get angry, but they are our friends and we feel that we should not be selfish and we should help, because we think, that’s what friends are for.
We do all this and much more, because we feel that we still are able to do it and that maybe, maybe “things will change”, but we are unhappy until we start to wither away. Professionally, emotionally, mentally and finally physically. Mental health issues or even physical illnesses may occur. If we don’t start doing something about it soon, then before we know it, it may be too late.
The Boiling Frog Syndrome in the history of Torture
If you look at our history, one of the worst methods of torturing people was to drip water on a person's head, drop by drop. One or two or three drops don't mean anything, they won't do anything, but when water is constantly dripping on a person’s head, after a while that person goes crazy, and those drops eventually make a hole in that hard human skull.
The theory of psychosomatics says that up to 95% of our illnesses come from our psychological problems. Our immunity is weakened by tension and stress. Of course, when we are under stress, we are also less attentive and we may even get injured.
It can be dealt with, treated, but the longer we "cook", the longer and harder it is to treat and heal ourselves.
The saddest thing is not when someone holds us back, but when we hold ourselves back.
In most cases, the problem is not so much our surroundings, but the boundaries and obstacles that we ourselves put in our way, and, of course, fear is the biggest obstacle. Let's free ourselves from our chains and follow our passions, goals and dreams.
"The greater danger is not that your aims and hopes are too high and you fail to achieve them, but that they are too low and you achieve them." Michelangelo
“The sky's not the limit, but your mind is.” Marilyn Monroe
"Some people don't need an enemy, they can do it all by themselves. Suffering usually does not come from outside, but from within. We create our own hell and suffering because we have set our brains on self-destructive mode. We must understand that happiness is within us, in our perception of the environment, and not in what our environment is like, because we only have control over our own inner world, because the outer world is never 100% according to our ideas, and that we are not in control…” Sadhguru.
What you are worrying about now may not even be relevant in a year.
Breathe. A moment of peace will give you perspective.
Find your space and talk to your higher SELF because the answers are there. No one knows what you want and need and what will make you happy but you yourself. Enjoy HERE and NOW and find your passions.
FOR THOUGHT: Try to think in which area of life you are already in hot or perhaps boiling water.