Hakuna Matata: Why We May Need To Worry

Introduction:

Welcome my friend,

We're back here for another conversation and this one is based on the popular kids classic Lion King.

In this, we study the journey of a little cub to becoming a lion, and by doing so, look to pick up deep truths from a mere fictional story.

Also, you don't have to be familiar with this story before now to understand the conversation as we'd briefly try to summarize it, highlighting key events.

So let's immediately get to it!

Discussion:

The Lion King is a story of a young lion named Simba whose father Mufasa happened to be the king of the jungle at the time.

Everyday Mufasa prepared his son on how to be king after, teaching him valuable lessons he knew would make him a good leader when he's dead.

He also had him betrothed to Nala, a young lioness who was to rule beside him as his queen, when that time came.

However, Mufasa also had a brother, Scar, who didn't think it was a good idea for his nephew to succeed the throne since he wanted to be king instead.

That's where the scheming and plotting began.

Now the hyenas were rebellious outcasts that didn't belong to the kingdom and instead sought ways to overthrow Mufasa.

Scar as part of his coup saw this as an opportunity to form an alliance with these hyenas to take out his brother but he needed a solid plan to make it work.

So he lured his naive nephew Simba into the hyenas territory to spark up a fracas and then sent word to his brother that his only son was about to be killed.

His genius plan worked because when Mufasa rushed out to save Simba from the melee, Scar pushed him off the top of a cliff which led to his death.

He then turned to Simba and asked him to run away from the kingdom to a far away land for stirring up a confusion that killed his father.

Mission accomplished, Scar is the new king with Mufasa dead and Simba on the run.

■ Examining Our Childhood 

Based on how far we've come into our story we can make some deductions from the childhood of the cub as it relates to us.

Well aware of his place as the next king he moved around with daring confidence which ultimately led to him veering into enemy territory to spark a war albeit his uncle's manipulation.

Truthfully, even though not everyone is born king, we usually start off life with the same high level of self belief, backed by a willingness to dare to do.

This is the courage of innocence and explains why as children we are mostly bold enough to be inquisitive.

Then if we're lucky, we find ourselves surrounded by people that answer these questions, preparing us ahead to step into our real world responsibilities rather than shut us out until we lose our voice.

Yet sometimes, regardless of where we start off, life can throw us curve balls that mean we eventually end up in the same place, losing our innocence, and missing our way.

This is what happened with Simba.

When his uncle blamed him for his father's death he deliberately placed on him the burden of guilt, shame and fear so that running away seemed to him as the best option.

This is something we're familiar with.

As life happens, we begin to replace all our inborn self confidence with doubt having lost faith in our abilities.

When we experience many failures it weighs us down, even placing on us the burdensome feeling of having let down those around us in the process.

This can be demoralizing.

So rather than facing the situation and looking for how to possibly change our predicament, we run away from it, refusing to take responsibility, even as time continues to pass by.

Sadly, this is how we waste our lives, missing out on our dreams because we're somewhere hiding out, now feeling inadequate to step up to take our place.

The other side to it too is that we should be really mindful of who we listen to their counsel and recommendations; so that they're not those intentionally seeking to mislead us.

This is how Simba lost his way to Scar's advice.

■ The Comfort Of Distractions

To continue our story, the now exiled cub meets two (2) other animals in his journey, Timon, a meerkat and Pumbaa, a warthog.

Interestingly, both outcasts become his friends introducing him to lifestyle, behaviors and even foods well undeserving of a lion king; one that had a responsibility to go back home to lead his people.

Quite simply put, he found comfort in his distractions.

This is something we know too well.

Many of us have allowed our circumstances to cause us to forget who we are, the abilities we have and the responsibilities we have towards those that could benefit when we dip into these abilities to solve their problems.

We've instead leaned into bad habits and uninspiring relationships slowly wallowing into mediocrity.

This is akin to finding comfort in what should be a transition phase, instead making it the destination; this isn't the best we can do.

We must constantly remind ourselves that we can be more!

There's nothing wrong with making new friends in our journey but let it not be those that further steer us away from our responsibilities, even introducing us to other activities that reinforce our bad behaviors.

Yet it's important to note that his friends were not bad at all, they just had different priorities according to what they were.

Which means that even good people can be bad for us when they don't align with our dreams, goals or purpose.

For instance, when they taught him their famous slang “Hakuna Matata” which means “no worries” it was to make him feel relaxed and have fun, just the way they did.

Which was suitable to them but not for Simba who had a bigger task.

How could he not be worried for his family, friends and kingdom now subjected to the rule of his cruel uncle?

Indeed, this is what happens when we lose our true identity having strayed into the wrong path for too long.

Truth is, individually, we are gifted differently and if we don't realize this early enough, we waste our own time with folks doing well for who they are.

Meanwhile we are being less of who we can be when we surround ourselves with those that inspire us to push to the limits.

This means that what works for others may not quite suit us well, when we have more responsibilities in front of us than they do.

Summary:

Having got this far in our conversation with a lot more yet to be talked through, it's now clear that we'd have to continue next week.

It's true that there are no word limits, but it's important that we're not here longer than we're used to, so that we don't begin to rush over key points.

It's been a good time here with you as always and if there's just one thing we'd remember let it be that ‘the potency of an advice depends on how it applies to our own lives’.

When we have that in mind, we don't end up holding on to what's good for others but bad for us.

See you next week!

Master Apprentice.

www.x.com/truekingmaker