Today I am still struggling some kind of imbalance within my system. I woke up during the night soaked from my battle against whatever is going on inside. Feeling less then fully clearheaded, I decided to share with you a funny story brought to you by my new dog Pax. No I am not going to become one of those blogs obsessed about their pets. However humor is a very healing and I wanted something to chuckle about as I wrote this. Norman Cousins, a prominent political journalist, author, professor, and world peace advocate, wrote much about the power of humor and laughter to bring about healing (go to dogpile.com to search for more info about Norman Cousins).
The other day I was sitting downstairs writing my blog and I smelled peanut butter. I thought, oh I had left the lid off the jar when I was making a snack for Pax. Then all of a sudden, my mind set off these red blinking alarms and I thought that is too strong a smell and I shot off running up the stairs. Our home is one of those 3 level ones and as I went up to the kitchen level, I noticed the jar was missing. I then headed up the next set of stairs and their was the lid and looking down at me was Pax, at the top of the stairs, with peanut butter all over his face. The large jar was half empty and Pax was obviously trying to get some of the peanut butter off his beard which was now a peanut butter brown. I called my wife to hurry up and come see what I was seeing. We both started laughing so hard. Sure he had made a mess and left us without an essential part of our regular diet but just the innocence of the pure pursuit of what he wanted made us laugh and appreciate his nature.
We love peanut butter and so does our dog. The negative for Pax was he couldn’t drink enough water and as you well know he must of felt all stuck up inside. The rest of the day was spent in trying to recover.
Yes there are some pointed lessons in this for all of us. The passionate pursuit of what you want is a very positive thing. He went for what he wanted, counter-surfed, and was rewarded with an abundance of great tasting delight. When you and I pursue what we want with passion we often create very positive results. His hard end of the lesson spectrum came from overdoing it. That can be the same for us. The journey toward what we want is the juice of life. Arriving and indulging for a while is the glory of success. Staying too long means you dull your pleasure and extinguish your passion.
The journey is the most important part of the pursuit of life. The arrival is to be celebrating but the further march to higher levels of self-realization must then begin anew. That is the way of living for us humans that will give us that greatest joy and aliveness. Are you in pursuit or languishing in peanut butter at this point in your life. Most likely your journey is what is going on and if you understand and appreciate that for all it is, then you can have joy and peace of mind all the way along.
I hope you find yourself covered with peanut butter, chocolate, money or success soon. Don’t stay too long, wipe your face, and then move on to the next pot of gold (success, love, happiness, money or whatever makes you feel good).
If you have any stories you want to share let me know and I will post them on my blog if they seem to fit. Have a fun day counter-surfing for what you want.