How to Overcome Your Insecurity (Using Wile E. Coyote as an Example)

Alan Watts, philosopher and theologian, made an interesting analogy concerning life as we know it. He asked his audience to imagine falling off a cliff and holding onto a large rock. My imagination went straight to Wile E. Coyote who, if you remember, was always holding onto a large falling rock, and usually missing the Roadrunner (quickus agilus bird) by a mile.

The purpose of Watts’ analogy was to explain that holding onto a rock while falling at two hundred miles an hour seems rather stupid, yet we do it every day without considering the consequences.

As Watts explains, we follow those around us, meaning our parents or other close relatives. At a young and impressionable age, we see them as examples and, therefore, don’t question their stupidity. So it’s sort of a blind-leading-the-blind scenario. We all hold onto large rocks as we fall through life with the result being similar to Wile E. Coyote (stupidus retchedus dog).

We go splat.

Now, since this is an analogy, Watts puts it in more concrete terms. Life is a continuous descent. We’re constantly falling and constantly wondering why we go splat. Simply put, we’re holding onto something that isn’t doing us any damn good, and we’re teaching our children to do the same thing.

Ironically, we know enough to yell “Let go of the f**king rock!” to Wile E. Coyote (as we’ve done since early pubescent times), yet we don’t know enough to let go of the rock ourselves. In fact, we hold onto it even tighter.

The rock, if you haven’t guessed, is our insecurity. It’s what we like to think is our responsibilities (our family, our home, our mortgages, etc). We pass these along to our children, teaching them to cling the same way we do. Like the old expression: “My father [or mother] worked like a dog his/her entire life to give us everything we needed.” So we do the same thing and, through the process, we feel satisfied living up to our father or mother’s example.

As noble as our parents were, they were still clinging to a rock, same as their parents, and their parents before them. Forget happiness, forget fulfillment. Do your job, raise your family, deal with the bills. And that’s your destiny and the destiny of everyone after you. On Facebook, you constantly see people thanking their fathers and mothers for their sacrifices. It’s a wonderful and tender moment, but it reveals a pattern of insecurity that becomes like genetic code. It’s inbred into one generation after another.

What Watts explains is that all we’re doing through this self-sacrifice (besides obvious martyrdom) is swimming against a tide. We don’t have to swim against a tide or encourage our children to do so. By letting go of the rock—or swimming with the tide—we can break this insecurity.

It doesn’t mean we relinquish our responsibilities. It means we look at what they are. Working long hours, for instance, so our families can have lots of stuff isn’t martyrdom. It’s materialism. It’s relying on possessions, like that falling rock, expecting it to break our fall. When we go splat—like we do every time we have a garage sale—we realize all our energy went into things we sell at a fraction of their original price.

Do any of these things reduce our insecurity or anxiety? No, we go out and buy more. We move up to better phones, better televisions, better call rates, better cars. The only people really happy about this are the manufacturers.

Have you noticed how your computer slows down each time you add a new operating systems or app? This is intentional. Apple works on this instinctively because they know we’re insecure. We’ll increase memory, we’ll buy a new computer, then we’ll go through the process again.

Manufacturers capitalize on this and they win. Every time line-ups form outside Best Buys the morning (or even the night before) a new iPhone is introduced, they’re showing us how much they win. They announce the sales figures for the first day of launch (even the first hour). It’s great for shareholders, it’s great for Apple. But we, my friend, are the Wile E. Coyotes of the consumer cartoon.

So what exactly is Watts telling us to do when he says, “Let go of the rock and swim with the tide”? He’s saying stop clinging to things. Stop swimming against what is obvious. When you go with the tide, when you let go of your insecurities, when you place emphasis on what you are, not what you have, you and your children, and their children will have a better existence.

Think of Wile E. Coyote again. He can’t stop his descent (it’s called age) but he can avoid the splat factor by letting go of the rock. By concentrating—not on what we give our families materially—but what we give them spiritually—we break the cycle of insecurity that’s making everyone miserable.

By spiritually, I mean Wile E. Coyote could have saved all the money he spent on dynamite, anvils and cannons (not to mention medical expenses), and put it into creating an environment that would attract the Roadrunner instead of putting him on the defensive. It’s called “Make Friends Not Dinner.” At the end of the day, according to the Dalai Lama, anyway, making friends and feeling good about yourself is a lot better than eating a skinny bird.

Watts also pointed out that every marina seems to be full of big yachts these days. They never leave the dock. They have cocktail parties. Why? Because they don’t know how to sail. They think the goal is owning the yacht. But if they did learn to sail, they’d discover the true joy of being out on the water.

So let go of that rock. It’s not going to change your descent (it’s still called age) but you’re going to hurt a lot less knowing you ain’t a pancake under a piece of useless granite. By letting go of your insecurities and anxieties, generations after you will realize there’s more to life than following a pattern of purchase.

I suspect this article will create as many naysayers as supporters. If you think I’m all wet (or you want to throw me under a rock) let me know at: rcormack@rogers.com

Robert Cormack is a freelance copywriter, journalist and novelist still looking for ways to slow his descent (like freelance assignments). His first novel “You Can Lead a Horse to Water (But You Can’t Make It Scuba Dive)” is available online and at most major book retailers. For more information, go to Skyhorse Press or Yucca Publishing.