Society’s Dragon Bias
We can hardly ignore the fact that our career-focused, consumer-driven, capitalist culture glorifies and worships the energy of the Dragon. After all, the Dragon is purpose-driven, focused, and competitive. The Dragon gets shit done—and Western culture is all about doing.
From a very young age, we are encouraged (and often pressured) to lean into our Dragon Energy. I was no exception. Time and time again, my family and society rewarded me for embracing my inner Dragon and, as a result, I spent such extended periods of time in that energy that I came to believe it was my natural state of being. I thought I was and always would be a Dragon.
Unless our careers require embodying Tiger Energy—like a creative industry or nurturing specialty—most of us spend a lot of our life operating from our Dragon Energy in order to get work done. Business apps on our personal smartphones and work-from-home setups in our houses mean that there are no longer any clear work boundaries. When we bring our work into our home, we also bring that Dragon Energy with us, and that blurs the energy lines considerably; it makes it difficult to determine whether we are dominant Dragons or just being dominated by our Dragon.
It isn’t just careers that require our Dragon Energy, either. Many people incorrectly assume that parenting and homemaking require nurturing Tiger Energy, but for the most part, we use our Dragon Energy to get that work done, too. Parenting and running a household require a great amount of discipline, routine, and organization—all traits of a Dragon.
If your initial reaction so far has been “my Dominant Energy is definitely Dragon,” I would just encourage you to open your mind and heart before you settle on that determination once and for all. We are so plugged into a society that rewards Dragon Energy that it is sometimes hard to understand what truly motivates us, what our priorities are, and where we derive our deepest pleasure. It might take losing your primary relationship or loved one to realize how important that love and relationship is to you.
If you could keep your job and achieve your career goals, but the price you had to pay was the love of your partner, would you still do it? Or if you could run the perfect household, with color-coordinated task boards and a perfectly executed extracurricular schedule for the kids, but your children would hate you, would you still do it?
I spent so long in my Dragon Energy that I started to believe it was my Dominant Energy. I believed that my purpose was more important than my relationships. If someone had asked me in my twenties whether I would choose my career goals or my husband, I might have answered “career” without thinking. However, upon actually testing that theory and almost actually losing my husband, it turns out that my younger self’s impulsive answer would have been wrong. In the end, I chose love first. I genuinely felt—and feel—that nothing was worth losing my marriage.
If you are still unsure about your Dominant Energy, or that of your partner, don’t worry we will provide tons more detail to help you work it out on this site and in my book Feed the Tiger, Free the Dragon.