There was this tiger cub that grew up in a flock of sheep. Life was not so great. While the other sheep were beautiful and white, this tiger had strange yellow and black colors. His voice was also so gruff, while his siblings had sweet voices. He was just never good enough, but now he was used to it. He had learned to accept the fact that he was different.

Until the day he ran into another Tiger, and fell in love. This tiger showed him an entirely new world. He took him to the river and showed him his reflection, made him see his true nature. And helped him realise that he wasn’t not-good-enough, he was just different.

But this opened up a whole new world – of confusion. How were tigers supposed to behave? He’d learned everything he knew from the sheep, and so far all he knew about tigers was that tigers were all-powerful, confident and dangerous. It felt good to know he was the most powerful being on earth and no one could touch him now. No more did he have to run away from the beasts – he WAS the beast!

He felt so good now, life was perfect. There were no more fears, no more running away, no more threat to his life, although he still sometimes caught himself preparing to run when he saw a wolf or a hunting dog. He found the little things that used to affect him when he was a sheep, didn’t affect him anymore now. He had risen above all those petty issues. He felt sorry for the sheep still stuck in the rut and tried to teach them how to act like a tiger.

Then the day came, when he got into a fight with the cheetah. He did it just for fun, because the cheetah mistakenly entered his territory. After all, he was all-powerful and nothing could touch him now. This cheetah had eaten some of his friends and it would be nice to teach it a lesson too. What he hadn’t anticipated was that he would lose the fight, and end up with deep wounds. This was not supposed to happen right? He was supposed to be powerful and mighty, he was not supposed to be defeated by the evil cheetah!

Thus ensued a long and painful time of self-doubt. Maybe he wasn’t a tiger after all. How could it be possible? Tigers were invincible. He clearly wasn’t. Therefore, he wasn’t a tiger. Everyone was wrong. He was just a pathetic ball of yellow and black fur. A good for nothing fellow who didn’t even know who he was.

Then, he discovered religion. Apparently he wasn’t alone. There were others out there, who had been through what he had been through, and they’d found respite in religion. There was a book that told them how they were supposed to behave. He learned he was a tiger after all, but he had to change his ways of life. There were rules about how a tiger was supposed to behave. A tiger was supposed to eat meat. It was supposed to hunt. Supposed to live alone. Supposed to take a nap at noon. He was finally learning how to be a tiger!

He felt so good now. He felt the same things he had felt before. He was powerful after all, he was invincible. He was a tiger! And now he was going to be a good tiger, he would know exactly how to be a good tiger now and no one could touch him again. He spent time with his religious friends and they showed him how to hunt, how to eat meat and how to do other tiger-things.

The excitement slowly started to fade and he started feeling lonely. He missed his sheep family. He missed the comfort of not having to look out for himself, and trusting the hunting dog or the fence for its safety. He wasn’t sure he liked all the things he was supposed to do as a tiger. Sometimes he broke the rules out of frustration. And then he would feel guilty and hate himself because he was clearly not interested in becoming a good tiger. He deserved to be punished for his actions. When he punished himself though, he didn’t necessarily feel better. Often, he felt worse, and again behaved in an un-tigerly fashion. And this got him into a nasty loop. Now he hated himself. He missed the days when he used to feel so good, and he was the perfect, all-powerful tiger. There was a time when nothing affected him, and now it was as if everything just made him feel more miserable.

Then he met another tiger, someone he started calling his guru. He liked this tiger because he was so calm and peaceful. He asked him how a tiger is supposed to behave. But the guru would not answer. Just be yourself, he said. Slowly he started to realise how many expectations he was carrying in his heart. His childhood was spent acting like a sheep. And the rest of his life, acting like a tiger. And also trying to resolve the conflict between the two personalities. And now his guru wouldn’t tell him which of the two behaviours was right. Just be yourself, he would say. How could he be himself? He didn’t know who he was because he was always doing what he was supposed to be doing!

He slowly started letting go of all the ‘supposed-to’s. Sometimes his behaviour was erratic, because he still hadn’t figured out who he was, and his religious friends thought he was a crazy sinner. But he held on. Eventually he let it all go. And he started to realise how easy it was to be a tiger. Things just came naturally. He realised that tigers weren’t all-powerful – it was a tough realisation, because it took all the comfort away, and he wondered what the point was, of being a tiger, if he wasn’t all powerful. But he started to realise that being a tiger had nothing to do with power. It was just a role. And he was no different, really, from the sheep. They were playing their role, he was playing his. And that was all.