The Boiling Frog: A Lesson in Perseverance and Growth

It was 8:00 a.m., and I was late. Again.

The Education Lecture Hall at Arizona State was already buzzing with more than 150 students, that familiar mix of chatter, backpacks dropping to the floor, and notebooks opening just as class was starting. I hurried over after locking up my bike outside, still trying to catch my breath from the ride. It had been a late night, probably too late, but skipping class was not an option. Missing an attendance quiz in Dr. Mendez’s class was one of the fastest ways to wreck your grade.

I slid into a seat near the back, hoping not to draw attention to myself. Dr. Mendez usually didn’t care if you were a minute or two late as long as you made it. I was fumbling for my notebook, still a little winded, when I heard him begin.

“Let me tell you about the boiling frog,” he said.

Something about the way he said it made me look up. In a room full of tired college students, half awake and half checked out, his tone cut through the noise.

“Imagine a pot of water,” he said, motioning with his hands as if he could see it in front of him. “If you drop a frog into boiling water, it jumps right out. But if you put it in cool water and slowly turn up the heat…”

He paused and looked around the room.

“The frog won’t notice until it’s too late.”

I still remember that moment. At the time, I probably thought it was just an interesting classroom metaphor, one of those stories professors use to get a point across and keep people from falling asleep. But for whatever reason, it stuck with me. More than that, it stayed with me.

Now fast forward to today, and I’m standing in a grocery store staring at a checkout screen that says $213.47.

I looked down at the cart, confused. It was the same basic stuff I always buy. Milk, bread, eggs, snacks for the kids, something for dinner. Nothing fancy. Nothing extra. And yet there it was, over two hundred dollars for what felt like a normal grocery run.

I paid, loaded the bags back into the cart, and just stood there for a second trying to make sense of it. On the surface, nothing had seemed outrageous. It wasn’t like I had picked up one item with some shocking price tag that made me stop in my tracks. It was more subtle than that. Everything just felt a little higher. A little smaller. A little worse.

That’s when I thought about Dr. Mendez and the boiling frog.

That’s what this feels like.

Not just groceries either. Gas. Electric bills. Everyday life. The changes don’t always hit all at once. They creep in. A little more here. A little less there. So slowly that you almost adjust without noticing. Until one day you stop and realize what used to feel manageable now feels heavy.

I sat in the car for a minute before pulling out of the parking lot, receipt still in my hand, and it hit me that this metaphor goes way beyond inflation.

Sometimes the heat in life is financial. Sometimes it’s emotional. Sometimes it’s spiritual. Sometimes it’s the quiet pressure of knowing you’ve been sitting too long in something familiar, even though it’s no longer good for you.

That part hit me personally.

For years, I’ve been working on my memoir. It has been more than a writing project for me. It has been healing. Reflection. A way of making sense of some of the hardest parts of my life. But when it came time to actually put it out into the world, to query agents, to risk rejection, I froze.

Not because I did not care, but because I cared deeply.

Rejection has always scared me. The idea of putting something that personal in front of other people and hearing no, or maybe hearing nothing at all, kept me stuck longer than I want to admit. I stayed in the familiar place. The safe place. The place where I could keep working on it without having to face what might happen next.

But eventually I had to be honest with myself. Staying there was not peace. It was fear dressed up as comfort.

The water was not cooling off.

And that realization changed something for me. I started looking at the heat differently. Maybe it was not just there to wear me down. Maybe it was there to push me. To force movement. To make me confront the parts of myself that were too comfortable hiding.

So now I’m investing in myself in a different way. Nights. Weekends. Time that would be easier to spend resting or checking out. I’m using it to work on the memoir, refine it, and prepare it to take its place in the world. It is uncomfortable. It is vulnerable. But it also feels necessary.

That is the thing I keep coming back to. Sometimes the heat is not there to destroy you. Sometimes it is there to refine you.

We all deal with our own version of boiling water. For some people, it is money. For others, it is grief, fear, insecurity, doubt, or the ache of knowing they were made for more than the life they are settling into. Whatever form it takes, the temptation is the same. Stay still. Adapt. Numb out. Convince yourself this is just how it is.

But growth usually does not happen that way.

Growth happens when you finally acknowledge what is heating up around you and decide not to stay there. It happens when you stop pretending comfort is the same thing as peace. It happens when you choose movement, even before you feel fully ready.

Faith has been a big part of that for me. It is what reminds me that pressure is not pointless. That hard seasons can shape us, not just hurt us. That even when life feels uncertain, there can still be purpose in the struggle.

I do not think the lesson is just to fear the boiling water. I think the deeper lesson is to pay attention to it. To notice when life is trying to wake you up. To recognize when discomfort is asking something of you.

Maybe that is where the next chapter begins.

So if life feels hot right now, if things feel heavy, if you know deep down that you have been sitting too long in fear or doubt or hesitation, maybe this is your moment to move. Maybe this is the moment to trust that the pressure is not the end of your story. Maybe it is the thing that finally pushes you into it.

Because sometimes the thing that makes you uncomfortable is the very thing that makes you grow.