a frog in a well: rethinking satisfaction

A frog in a well. Here, the frog is a metaphorical expression for those who live in their own world, a narrow space, without realizing the largeness of the world outside.

As a kid, I anticipated the proverb as a sort of a moral–a sharp criticism for those who refuse to explore, who conform themselves into a single space in which they settle into. I would shake my head sideways and feel pity for the saying’s protagonist. What are we going to do with you, frog? So helpless. So small. So innocent. How much shock will you receive when stepping out of that well?

To read “a frog in a well” again after 10 years, I feel a difference in my perception. It’s less pity, and surprisingly, greater envy.

The frog is after all, satisfied; it is comfortable where it is. In the vast world, it finally found its space of refuge, fellow frogs to spend time with, and it can spend most of its time where it feels most alive.

Of course, the frog must have had further opportunities to travel outside–to explore the world and dip its flippers into wells where different ethnicities of frogs take refuge, interact with each other in different ways, with different ideas floating around their frog brains. If the frog took all those opportunities, it might have grown into a smarter frog: a frog with a broader, wider, and more tolerant understanding of the whole world.

A frog who keeps pushing its boundaries to become the record breaker in visiting most wells in the frog Guinness Book. That is the idealistic image of achievement.

What people don’t seem to realize is that the frog’s ultimate goal is not achievement; it is survival. As long as it is breathing, catches enough flies to fill its stomach, and has a family which will eventually serve as a genetic footprint (the webbed feet on those lily pads will be proof that it had, indeed, once lived on planet earth), the frog will have addressed its ode to life.

Essentially, the frog stays in its well because it learned how to be satisfied.

Perhaps, why I feel envy towards the frog is because in the world of humans, achieving the quality of competitiveness exceeds beyond the simple goal of survival. To be successful, one must not be satisfied. One must keep improving. Pushing forward. Innovate. Advance. That is what the world of “others” wants from their best candidates–for whatever position that may be.

The well is big, wide, and deep. One can only find more to learn; there is no such thing as ‘the end’. To survive in this well, one is better off to have had multiple experiences in the past. Not only should they be able to float on water, but they must be able to swim. dive. Their licenses confirm that they're enough to live in this crowded well–as they slowly begin to adapt to the suffocation.. of the high-tide water.. of frogs with greater talent.. of frogs with greater ambition.. of frogs celebrating a paycheck with another 0 attached.. of frogs with eyes that flash–in a similar way as do humans.

The world is large, and there is plenty of space, yet it seems like greater and greater number of people hope to occupy unnecessarily large spaces located in the ‘spot of gold’–even if that means years of dissatisfaction, shoulders continuously hit by competitors.

Is it not different–a narrow space that one chooses to live in, and a narrow space that one is half-forced into confinement? A frog in a well fits the former. Humans.. seem to be swept by tides into the second.

I wonder if the envy will last long. I wonder if I will ever be satisfied, if I will ever choose to settle in one well.

Will I ever become brave enough to be the frog in a well? Or will I assimilate myself in the commoners, squished altogether in subway stations, pitying after a frog jumping to its well?

One thing for sure is that, while heading to its well, the frog will not care about me at all. It shall leap into its zone of comfort, its zone of satisfaction.

And it shall continue to spread the legend named after itself.. of course, anonymously.