It was late. The house was quiet in that way it only gets when everyone else is asleep and your thoughts decide it’s their time to shine. I was half-watching, half-absorbing Dave Chappelle’s latest Netflix special, “The Unstoppable”. As expected, it wandered into controversial territory. Dave does not tiptoe. He stomps. Thoughtfully. Sometimes gleefully.
And then he shared something his mother used to say to him:
“Sometimes you have to be a lion so you can be the lamb you really are.”
I remember hearing that quote and thinking, Huh. Interesting. I liked it immediately, even if I didn’t fully get it. But like most things worth understanding, it needed time. Some marinating. A few life experiences. A couple of tough meetings.
What it means, at least to me, is that sometimes you need force. Not cruelty. Not bluster for its own sake. But strength. A bold posture. A clear spine. You need it to carve out space so your gentler self doesn’t get trampled. So your softness doesn’t become an open invitation for exploitation. The lion isn’t the point. It’s the protection.
As someone who has stepped into executive roles where the ground was already shaking, I get this deeply. There are moments when you don’t get to arrive softly. You have to enter firmly. You have to make hard calls, say unpopular things, and hold steady when things wobble. Not because you enjoy it but because leadership sometimes requires it.
And yet.
That strength, when it’s real, makes room for gentleness. For fairness. For humor. For listening. For warmth. Being a lion isn’t about roaring constantly. It’s about knowing you can, so you don’t have to.
This idea followed me again recently in a much cheekier form. I received a Christmas gift with a card that noted, in part “HBIC”. I’ll let you fill in the acronym yourself. Let’s just say the sentiment wasn’t subtle. But oddly, it echoed Dave’s quote. Same energy. Different packaging.
Because being the lion can also mean being calm under pressure. Being steady. Being principled. It can mean leading people through uncertainty without theatrics. Making the hard calls so there can be ease later. Creating safety so others, and you, can soften.
This isn’t Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It’s not a personality split. It’s integration. It’s being a full person. Strong and gentle. Decisive and kind. Protective and open.
The world often asks us to choose. Be tough or be tender. Be powerful or be good. But the truth is that both can exist. In fact, the best versions of us usually require them to.
Sometimes you have to be a lion.
So you can be the lamb you really are.
Categories: Celebrity, Culture, current events, identity, Pop Culture, society, TV
psychologistmimi 
No one can be the lion all the time. It’s good to have as a skill, though. Happy New Year!
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Ah Yes Indeed to Be A Lion
To Be the Lamb You Really Are
i Surely Can Relate Dear Miriam
So Kind And Thin Always SMiLinG
So Joyful Accused of Being a Girl
In a Place Where
So-Called Christian
Soldier Boys Sent Out
Perhaps Unwittingly Yet
Never the Less to Erase
The Empathy of Boys ‘Normally’ Averse
to Killing Other Humans in Unwarranted
Wars For More Stuff to Oil the Machine of Greed
So What to Do in the Middle School Halls and City
Park When You Smile and They Say in ‘This Town’…
Once Holding the Record For Most Christian Churches
Per Capita in a Locality Circa That Era of the Early 70’s And
The Vietnam War too That Took the Life of one of the Few Male
Members of my Maternal Side Burning Up in a Helicopter Yes Volunteering
Hoping to Be
Another
World
War Hero
True my Aunt
Never Got Over That
Particularly Seeing All
The Deceit of War Unwarranted
By Those Who Sow Deaths of Young Men to Reap
And Pillage the World Of More of Its Resources only For US
Of Course Those Well Heeled in Charge of the Well OiLeD Machine
Yes For When THEY DeMaND in Middle School Halls and the City Park
BOYS ARE NOT ALLOWED
TO SMILE IN THIS TOWN
AND YES THEY LITERALLY
SAID THAT NO HYPERBOLE
JUST PURE UNADULTERATED CHILDHOOD EVIL
Sadly too Drifting Up out of the Muck Of Pews in
Places Called
Church
So What to Do
When They Literally
Spit in Your Face And
Threaten Harm Just for
Expressing the Joy oF LoVE iN Peace
For All Just for Existing in this Great Gift of Life
Oh Dear Lord Yes What A CoNuNDRuM Become
Literally As Strong as a ‘Superman’ Weighted By Gravity on Earth
Hmm Instead Not Defying Gravity Yet Becoming FRiEnDS With Gravity
Yes hehe And at Least becoming Strong As An ‘Orangutan’ by now at
65 Still Leg Pressing 1540 Pounds 12 Reps Indeed Somewhat
Roaring Like a Mix of Lion Bear and Gorilla While Doing it
Thundering
Echoes Within
Walls hehe of
the Military Gym for REAL Now With Arms Raised
Ah Yes Miriam FRiEnDS With Gravity Celebrating
23,000 Miles oF Public Dancing Already This Week
Just ‘8 Miles’ More To Go And This is No Rap Song Alone
Indeed And a SonG of mY SoUL in Free Verse Poetry 14.8 MiLLioN
Words in the Same
148 Dancing
A Mix of Free
Ballet and Martial
Arts All Over This
TRuMP ToWN Metro Area
For Real in Public Everywhere i go
Why Not Unlike Middle School It Feels Good to Be
Alive i Shall Not Squander This One Existence For Those
Who Worship
After Death
In a Dirt Nap
More Than Breathing Now
For Indeed ‘They’ Explained Long
Ago Deep Down Who They Truly Were
And Now The ‘Old Testament Trump God’
Has Released Them Free Out of Motels
In the
Dark
Night
Of the Soul
Still So Asleep
So far Away from
LoVE iN Peace For All
True While Mice May Mess
With Boys and Men Usually
Hehe They Stay Away From
Dancing Locomotives on the
Tracks
oF LoVE iN Peace
Choo Choo Choo Choo
Whoops i Did it Again
Just Another
Cosmic
Sneeze
Returning Now HeHE…
Also Currently Writing
A Celebration of “Grand Cross Bible 2025″
The 10th one Since 2016 From Around Memorial
Day in May Till The End of the Year 7 Month Every
Year Larger Than the the Old ‘King James Try”
Indeed 1.13 MiLLoN Words Last Year and
1.86 MiLLioN Words from May to May in
2025 for FB Profile Pic Bible 12 MiLLioN
Words Old
in 103 Real
Months Now too
Yet You See It’s Not
Really A Cross to Lift
Just a Flow a Holy Move in Dance
A Sacred Word of Song Total Bliss
There is No Real Weight to the
Yoke in Flow
Of Heaven Within
Yet Occasionally
i Do Require a Nap hehe
Never Making a Penny
Literally A Laziest
Dude in LA Yep Lower
Alabama Panhandle
of Florida the TRuMP
Place for Footloose For Real hehe
‘Go Ahead Spit on me’ and Some Years
Later i’ll Start A TSuNaMi Splashing into
The Ocean
of All That is
With
SMiLes…
It’s True at Least
to me Reality IS Much
More Interesting Than Fiction hehe…
The Hell
With
Dirt Naps..:)
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Sometimes you can’t say, “I told you so,” when you are completely entitled to, and it might make you feel better – the end of this year was one of those times.
If we had just done things my way and in a timely manner, I would not have had to stress my poor chronically ill system as hard as I had to – and now I have to keep my mouth closed because the wrong words could destroy a long-time relationship I value.
C’est la vie.
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I hope 2026 is a great year for you where there’s less stress and you move towards that north star.
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Couldn’t have said it better myself, deep inside I’d like to be my soft lamb self 24/7 but sometimes the lion has to emerge if anything’s going to get done
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That’s right!! Wishing you all the best in 2026
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