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Recently and with great anticipation, I decided to add a wireless modem to my laptop computer. The prospect of being able to go online from anywhere excited me a lot.
“You’re computer is too old,” the sales person told me, as I stood there, my heart in my hand. “ Your software won’t accommodate this device. Sorry.”
Unhappy, I drove home. I thought I’d watch a movie to get me out of my funk. “The Bucket List” was playing. Like so many times in my life, the right message at the right time showed up. The film is a brilliant portrayal of two guys with terminal illnesses who make of list of things they want to do before they die. On a deeper level, they are trying to find the meaning of life.
In one scene, the character played by Morgan Freeman explains that the ancient Egyptians believed that when we die, an angel appears to the departed soul and asks two questions: Have you found joy in your life? And, have you brought joy to another person’s life?
Those questions are not dissimilar from reports of people who have had a near death experience. Accordingly, upon death a being of light appears and asks, What have you done with your life? Instantly the joy or sorrow one has brought to others and oneself is experienced.
America is the only country in the world where people expect to be happy. And we’ve been pursuing happiness since Jefferson said it was our right. Europeans and Asians expect bad things to happen. We expect good things to happen. And when happiness doesn’t happen, we take drugs to mollify our happiness void.
Last week I learned this: Joy and happiness is not a wireless modem. The joy is in the lesson.
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It started out our typical afternoon walk.
But today, my little guy, Ike got a wake up call.
In the ten seconds it took me to put mail in the box, life turned on a dime: barking…yelping… vicious attack noises.
Taking on a dog four times his size, Ike’s 18 pound body was no match for the 90 pound huskey now tossing him around like a football.
It ended in the emergency room. Fortunately, a happy ending, (as far as blood loss and IVs can be a happy thing). But it could’ve been worse.
But sadder than the trauma of the moment, is the change I’ve seen in Ike ever since.
Where once my furry friend possessed no fear (and I mean NO fear)…he now lives under the bed. As gut-wrenching as it was, my mad dash across rush hour traffic with my towel-wrapped, wounded and wimpering pup, how I was to know the sadder part was yet to come: seeing my once feisty friend, now tail-tucked and skittish.
I know he’ll rally. Maybe someday he’ll resume his spunky nature.
But something in Ike changed that day. Like Adam and Eve eating forbidden fruit, he took on an awareness, that I’d like to take away.
I know from experience that sudden fear can change you. A break in. A car wreck. One sudden bolt of adrenalin can alter our chemistry and outlooks forever.
But what about the unconscious fears that seep in unannounced? That bleak evening newscast? Office rumors of lay offs?
As I observed a very physical aftermath in Ike’s own PTSS (Pup Traumatic Stress Syndrome), I can’t help but wonder what fear’s doing to us as humans.
After all, we don’t have tails (tucked or wagging) to send a signal.
Then again, we do have increased pharmaceutical sales and road rage.
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