They say if you take a pot of warm water and drop a frog into it, the frog will without hesitation jump out.

But if you put the frog in the pot of water and then gradually increase the heat, the frog will eventually boil in the water and die but won't jump out. Shocking, isn't it? Ever since I read about this, the image has stuck in my mind.

The crux of the matter is that if exposed to initial severe pain or shock, there is an immediate reaction to avoid it, but if the exposure is gradual, and persists over a period of time, the end result is death.

Often, we wonder why people who are abused over a period of time don't simply "jump out". The reason is simple: slowly, as their self-esteem becomes more and more eroded, they come to accept and almost to feel that they deserve the abuse.

I suspect it is for this reason that our internal alarm siren should be triggered the minute we are confronted with the wrong things in life, such as negativity, abuse, evil, etc. If we don't sound our alarm the first time we witness these and make an attempt to avoid the situation that triggered it, we might be confronted with the same situation over and over until we eventually get used to it and come to accept it.

This does not mean we should have little or no tolerance. It simply means that in the context in which we find ourselves at that moment, we will be able, without judgement, to instinctively feel what is right and what is wrong.

You may argue that some things are right for some and wrong for others. True, and in most of those instances we should tread carefully and reserve judgement, but the fact remains that we all know deep inside our souls when words, actions, concepts, etc are harmful. It is in these instances that we are expected to act.

Taking action should still come from a place of truth and with the intention to make better and not worse.

An equally important challenge is to examine our own lives to see if there aren't a few areas where we are being "boiled" like the frog. Areas where we have abdicated the responsibility to "jump" and sound the alarm.

Perhaps we are living with someone or know someone who is hurting themselves or others and we should have spoken out a long time ago. As you can imagine, there could be quite a few areas in our lives where we might decide to now make the jump instead of boiling to death.

I think the choice is simple - you are either in the light or in the darkness and if, like Luke from Star Wars, you have a father like Darth Vader who lives in the darkness, it doesn't mean you have to follow.