Appreciated or not, we're
constituted
so that danger abounds when we violate our own integrity ie when we
don't
honor our
word.
I say that not intending to invoke guilt, shame, blame, or fear.
No, it's sage counsel, just like I'd say "Oh, I wouldn't try to
ride that bike which has wheels with broken spokes if I were you
...".
So like those dragons guarding the temple of truth from what we may
do to it, dragons also guard each of us from what we may do to
ourselves which threatens to violate our own integrity and mundane
sacredness
- that is to say, when we play small. Danger abounds when we're
that way ie when we're being anything less than who we say we are,
especially when we're justifying ie making excuses for
being anything less than who we say we are. That's when that army
of fierce fire-breathing dragons makes its
presence
felt. It's not an ethical or a moral phenomenon. Only fools deny
noticing just how fast it happens when they play small.
Now to be crystal clear for the fastidious among us: no, there are
no such things as fire-breathing dragons! Really.
They're deployed here
analogously,
pointing to observable, natural, predictable (if not unconsidered)
consequences of not
honoring our
word
ie of
cheapening it.
Like what? And more importantly, like how?
The way these fire-breathing dragons guard us from violating our
own integrity and mundane
sacredness
is not by correcting ie by reinstating our integrity for us when we
violate it. No, it's when we do, they scorch us ongoingly,
relentlessly.
It's what confronts us with the consequences of violating our
integrity. It renders us forced to sit up, pay rapt
attention,
and find the way to reinstate integrity by ourselves for ourselves.
Don't trivialize this. The thing about trivializing being scorched
by fire-breathing dragons is we do so at our own peril. To do so,
is to miss a timely warning that we're compromising our integrity
ie that we're not
honoring our
word,
that we're playing small, that we're not being who we say we are.
Consequences of not
honoring our
word
include the loss of affinity, a tarnished trustworthiness, and an
overall failing workability in our lives, to list three (and
arguably there are many hundreds more).
Remember this is neither an ethical nor a moral phenomenon. It's
simply don't ride the bike with the wheels with broken spokes! Not
riding that bike, is smart - given that our doing so, obviously
puts us in danger. What's not so obvious (as fire-breathing dragons
would warn us) is our doing so puts others in even
greater danger.
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Fire-Breathing Dragons