Get off the Wheel by Cassy Lee - Transcript
Panel 1:
Narration: Are you tired of running on the wheel of external validation?
A stressed out hamster runs on a wheel inside a cage with a silhouetted onlooker watching. The onlooker’s word bubbles say, “Oh, look at her go! What a good wittle hamster!”
Panel 2:
Narration: Do you feel guilty whenever you stop running?
The exhausted hamster lies spent on its back, arms and legs outstretched to its sides. A thought bubble shows the hamster thinking, “I’m a bad, lazy hamster.”
Panel 3:
Narration: Do you wonder what it would even look like to get free?
The hamster looks anxious as it stands on its two hind legs, holding up its front paws in a worried gesture. The hamster’s thought bubble says “What would I even choose to do with my one wild and precious life?”
Panel 4:
Narration: Do you worry you’d feel paralyzed by self doubt and so do nothing?
The hamster scrolls through social media posts of much hotter, more successful hamsters and wonders in a thought bubble, “I’m not pretty/thin/smart/rich/cool enough to do anything well. Why try?”
Page 5:
Narration: Maybe you’d even be tempted to just get back on the wheel?
The hamster is turning back toward the wheel on hind legs with a guilty look and a dismissive shrug of the shoulders, paws palm face up, saying in a word bubble, “Hey, it’s what I know.”
Page 6:
Narration: Pause. Breathe. What if you took some time to discover what you actually like to do?
The hamster is depicted in various activities: joyfully leaping in a dance move, hiking in nature, drawing a protest sign that says “Equal Rights for Hamsters”, reading a book entitled Wheel Detox: Breaking the Spin Cycle.
Page 7:
Narration: You might have moments when that old shame, guilt, and doubt creep in.
The hamster pauses from working on its graphic novel memoir entitled Free at Last: How I Stopped Running and Started Living with mild panic in its eyes. Thought bubbles say, “Wait, is feeling good even allowed? Shouldn’t I be doing more important things?”
Page 8:
Narration: Acknowledge those fears and tap into your own deep well of self worth.
The hamster sits upright in a lotus pose with one hand on its heart and the other on its belly, eyes closed with a peaceful smile. One thought balloon says, “Of course you are afraid AND you can still try new things” and another says, “Hey, I might actually be an ok hamster just as I am.”