Pets: Inspired by Buddy: How a Rooster Made Me a Man

I have grown to understand that there are "pet people" and there are "not pet people". My feet are firmly planted in the second group, though I think I understand at least a little bit about people in the former group. It seems everyone around me (outside my immediate family) is a "pet person". They all have dogs, cats, or sometimes even both. I'm afraid of cats and I'm confident they would ruin the sheer curtains in my home, so I have never even seriously considered acquiring one. Occasionally, I think I should get the kids a dog, because admittedly, they bring a lot of joy into the house.

But along with that joy? It absolutely overwhelms me to think of remembering to buy food, take a walk, feed the dog, get the dog clean water, hire someone to take care of the dog when I'm out of town, etc. And as I was reading "Buddy: How a Rooster Made Me a Man", I think I finally realized that dog people don't think at all about what I see as major inconveniences.

Instead, dog people think about the unconditional love from a pet, the satisfaction of fulfilling a need, the getting out int he neighborhood and finding new purpose. This still astounds me. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought about how I view a lot of things through a lens of "how inconvenient is this?". And it strikes me that although time pressure is probably the thing that haunts me most, it's probably not the healthiest lens to view things through. 

And so, in honor of McGrory and all the dog lovers out there, I'm going to try changing how I prioritize considerations of new things. I'm going to move up the value of possible adventure and love in my decision tree. Or at least I'm going to try! But no, I will not be running out to purchase a dog, or a rooster, or a cat, or...

Elaine

Disclosure: This post was inspired by Buddy: How a Rooster Made Me a Man, a memoir by Brian McGrory. Join From Left to Write on November 21 as we discuss Buddy: How a Rooster Made Me a Man.  As a member, I received a copy of the book.