Mark Alan Fish

The wolves are always there. A curveball simply reveals which one takes the lead.

Just a few hours after purchasing a framed copy of The Tale of Two Wolves in Sun Valley, Idaho, I found myself lying in an Emergency Room bed.

That wasn’t part of the plan.

Earlier that afternoon, I had returned to The Farmer’s Daughter, the same store where I had first encountered the story seven months earlier when the reMARKable Odyssey began. As I shared in my previous article, I purchased a beautifully framed version of the artwork and left feeling grateful, excited, and oddly satisfied.

By evening, I had been hit by a car.

I was crossing a street in downtown Ketchum when a vehicle making a left turn entered the crosswalk. Before I knew it, the car had run over the front of my feet, my body and head hit the hood, and I fell to the pavement.

Within minutes, I was in an ambulance, wearing a neck brace and having my vitals checked.

A short time later, I was lying in an ER bed undergoing scans, X-rays, blood work, and tests to determine how badly I had been injured.

Thankfully, the outcome was far better than it could have been.

A broken toe. A bruised and swollen foot. A cut above my eye that required stitches. Bruised ribs. Scrapes and soreness.

Considering what had happened, I was fortunate.

Very fortunate.

As I lay in that hospital bed waiting for results and stitches, I had a lot of time to think. And funny enough, the story I had purchased earlier that afternoon was front and center in my mind.

The Tale of Two Wolves.

If you’ve never heard it, it’s the story of two wolves that live within each of us. One represents anger, fear, resentment, jealousy, greed, and ego. The other represents joy, peace, love, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and faith.

Earlier that day, it was simply a story hanging on a wall — that evening, it became real.

Because as I lay there, both wolves showed up.

The first wolf was easy to recognize: Frustration. Anger. Self-blame.

“How did I not see the car?”

“Why wasn’t I paying closer attention?”

“Why didn’t she see me?”

“Why did this happen at all?”

The second wolf showed up too: Gratitude. Compassion. Forgiveness. Faith.

“I was alive.”

“The scans were clear.”

“I was going to walk out of the hospital.”

And while I was frustrated by what had happened, I also found myself thinking about the driver. She hadn’t intended to hit me. She was shaken, upset, and dealing with her own version of the event.

Both wolves were there.

Both were real.

And that’s when I realized something the story had never fully revealed to me before.

The lesson isn’t about eliminating one wolf — it’s about becoming aware of both.

For me, I had interpreted the story as a battle between good and evil, right and wrong.

Feed the good wolf.

Starve the bad wolf.

Simple.

Except that’s not what I experienced in the ER.

I wasn’t feeling only gratitude.

I wasn’t feeling only frustration.

I was feeling both.

At the same time.

The older (and wiser) I get, the more I realize that life rarely presents us with a single emotion. Most meaningful experiences contain several at once.

The wolves aren’t problems to solve.

They’re parts of ourselves that we need to understand.

There are moments that call for anger. Moments that call for compassion. Moments that call for grief. Moments that call for forgiveness.

The goal isn’t pretending one wolf doesn’t exist.

The goal is to become aware enough to consciously choose who leads.

Over the last several weeks, I’ve continued to feel both wolves.

There are still moments when the accident replays in my mind. Moments when I approach a crosswalk and feel more cautious than I used to. Moments when frustration quietly returns.

But there is also a deeper sense of gratitude, a greater appreciation for life, and a renewed awareness of how quickly everything can change.

One moment, you’re walking through town on a beautiful summer evening.

The next moment, you’re in an ambulance, wondering what just happened.

Life is precious.

Sometimes it takes an unexpected event to remind us of that.

But the biggest lesson wasn’t really about the accident.

It was about awareness.

The wolves weren’t waiting in the artwork — they were waiting in me.

The frustration was already there. The gratitude was already there. The fear was already there. The compassion was already there.

The accident didn’t create them — it revealed them.

The more I’ve reflected on the experience, the more I’ve come to believe that this is true of life itself.

Life keeps revealing what’s already inside us.

The Odyssey revealed how much trust I was capable of having.

The crossroads revealed what kind of freedom I truly wanted.

The wolves revealed the conversations already happening within me.

And the accident revealed who showed up when life unexpectedly changed course.

Not who I wanted to be.

Who I already was.

The Tale of Two Wolves taught me a lesson in the afternoon.

Life gave me a chance to practice it that evening.

What I discovered wasn’t which wolf wins — it was that both wolves show up.

Wisdom comes from becoming aware of them and choosing, moment by moment, which one leads.

Because when life throws you a curveball, both wolves arrive.

The question is:

Which one will you listen to?