Take me to your leader
~ when we identify the elephant in the room, and if we can should we stay or run?
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Elephants are everywhere.
You know what I mean, when people say ‘there is an elephant in the room’ - they don’t mean you are at the zoo or a meeting of the Republican party (though workplaces and families can feel that way sometimes), they mean the unspoken truths, the unspoken factors, relationships or influences of an issue, person or factor that overwhelms by it’s presence, as a threat to the stability of things while silent - large enough to a ‘crush you by rolling over’ elephant, but they appear - not as elephants or even like any other large mammal … but make no mistake, they’ll crush you. They’ll crush your body, or your work, or your reputation, or your expectations - and even if you withstand all of that, they’ll crush your spirit to the point where your spirit is flatter than pee on a plate …
Is there an elephant in your room? And can we identify them?
We all know what an elephant looks like, do we not? Big, gray, wrinkly/deep grained skin, legs like tree-trunks, a nose/trunk drinking tool - these animals are spectacular for their size as well as how they touch us when we see them in action and amaze us by their gentle-giant presence, their social/elephant society behaviour we’ve witnesses in nature films - workhorses, loved by many, but with the overwhelming power/threat to crush us a will, and with a phenomenal memory.
But that’s not what I mean.
Anyone over the age of 12 knows it, because we all have elephants in the rooms we venture in and out of; at work, play, politics, fiction and reality, on the world stage (you know who they are), or on the streets where we live in every community in every country.
So what do we do? Do we hide from or strategize to avoid elephants? Do we hit and run, hit, or just run?
Whether we are strugglers in our own daily struggles or leaders on the world stage, the elephants will go where they want, when they want and aside from poachers in the wild, the pachyderms seem to have few enemies and face few threats. They travel in the wild (wildlife preserves, not zoos) protected by laws and pubic opinion, the mothers protect their young and the young males want to grow up to be the big bull (bully) elephants who want to father many elephants and won’t relinquish their power until defeated, embarrassed or dead. Any similarities to current political figures is absolutely intentional …
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