The Two Arrows - Lessons for Tough Times in Life

Two times in the past week I’ve encountered references to the Buddhist parable about the “Two Arrows.” The first was while meditating, using a course on Insight Timer by Charles Freligh. The second was while scrolling Instagram while waiting for a doctor appointment. 

I took this as a sign that I should think a bit about the parable, and that thinking led me to typing these words. 

Brightly painted fishing buoys with a boat in the background.

The parable goes something like this. If you’re walking in the woods and someone shoots you with an arrow, you are guaranteed to feel pain. You might have been doing everything you can to prevent yourself from getting hit by the arrow (e.g., wearing bright clothing, scanning the trees for threats), but you still got hit. It was unavoidable!

As unpleasant as this first arrow is, what comes next might be worse. Perhaps you start worrying about whether the tip had poison on it. Or you fear you will bleed out in the woods, or pass out because the sight of blood disturbs you. Your mind could race to hundreds of different scenarios and conclusions, causing you much worry, tension, and fear. In Buddhist teaching, this sense of worry and fear is known as the second arrow, and represents suffering. It is avoidable!

While your brain is doing this marathon of what-ifs, you could be taking action: putting pressure on the wound, calling 911, taking shelter from further attacks. But instead, you are worrying and suffering, and perhaps increasing your chance that the situation gets worse. 

Although many or most (or all) of my readers face little risk of getting hit by an arrow, there are lessons here to learn in the workplace and life generally. Here are a few that come to mind:

• Separating fact from fiction. It might be a fact that you have a difficult situation with someone who you manage. But it’s fiction that it’s impossible to solve or that you are alone in trying to fix it. That kind of thinking can lead you to get angry or escalate the stakes in your head, rather than thinking about how to solve it. 

• Hearing constructive criticism with a growth mindset. Perhaps your boss gave you some tough feedback on a presentation you gave or paper you wrote. That first arrow will likely hurt, but you can choose to learn from the feedback rather than taking it personally or beating yourself up with “what-if’s.” If you get tough feedback, quickly jot down or type out the lessons you want to take from it, and start thinking about how you’re going to do that.

• Moving from uncontrollable to controllable. Imagine you don’t get a grant that you need to launch an important program. You can spend a lot of time ranting or gossipping about the funder. Or you can ask why your request was turned down (see bullet immediately above), or get started on a pitch to a new funder. 

Two corollaries to how I interpret this parable:

First, it’s easy to worse-case scenario situations when you’re pondering them alone at your desk. As an introvert, I am prone to doing this, and almost always feel better if I talk to a friend, partners, or colleague (or therapist or coach) about the issue.

Second, the lesson here isn’t to suppress our feelings. They are real and valid and need to be expressed. But if we stay in those feelings for too long we can quickly create the proverbial mountain out of a molehill. Feel what you’re feeling, but create a default mode of action, making sure you come back to those feelings if they are lingering.  

Since I encountered the parable, I’ve been using it in my own life. In one situation, I was in a photography class and didn’t know the technical details of what was being taught. I was confused and lost–the first arrow! And then I quickly started to feel badly about myself, thinking I was an imposter with no skills–the second arrow! I pushed myself to ask a question, and in response the instructor was kind and appreciative of my participation. This put me back into a healthy learning mode, and I was able to get something good out of the class. 

Life is hard–first arrows abound! But we can dial down the suffering we feel from them if we take a minute to pause, feel, and reframe.