A line from a man who refused to be anyone but himself.
Sitting Bull — Tẟatẟáŋka Íyotake — was a Hunkpapa Lakota leader and holy man, born around 1831 in what is now South Dakota. He spent his life defending his people’s land, their way of living, and their right to exist on their own terms. He led the resistance that defeated Custer at the Little Bighorn in 1876. He took his people north into Canada rather than surrender, came back when hunger forced his hand, and was killed at Standing Rock in December 1890 by police sent to arrest him.
He never once became what the government wanted him to be. That’s the man these words come from.
The line comes to us the way most of his words do: through the people who heard him and carried it forward. In the fuller teaching, each of us has a different purpose, and you don’t have to become someone else to have value. An eagle that tries to live like a crow isn’t humble. It’s lost.
Over a century later, the pressure to be a crow is stronger than ever. Fit in. Tone it down. Match the room. Sitting Bull’s answer was simple: you don’t have to.
