My cat has developed a poor habit of late. She herds us towards her dishes and yowls incessantly, asking for more even though her bowls contain adequate amounts of food and water. It’s like she looks at them but doesn’t believe them. She can only be silenced by the sound of the food in the container where we store it. A simple mock pour will placate her for a time until she yet again demands more of what she already has.
It’s an exasperating habit, especially since she seems to be most likely to share her anguish between the hours of two and four. In the morning.
I don’t know what drives her need: fear? confusion? greed? dominance? Or maybe she just finds humor in making her humans dance.
The act, regardless of its motivations, drives me crazy. But I can relate.
There are times in my life when I exclaim that I do not have enough instead of seeing what I actually have.
“I don’t have enough time.”
Yes I do. But this sentence shifts the responsibility off of me and onto the rapidity of the earth’s rotations. Clever, huh? What I really mean when I use this phrase is that the purposed actions are not important enough for me to make time. Time is there. It’s up to me how I allocate it. It’s also up to me to learn to take responsibility for that.
“I don’t have enough money.”
This one is fear talking. I have enough money to live, to pay my bills and have some fun. What I don’t have is enough money to sooth my anxiety, a fallback fund large enough to quell fears about the future. I’m (slowly) working to build that fund, but in the meantime, I can work on the fears, many of which are rooted in unreality.
“I don’t have enough stuff.”
Yup, confusion talking here. It’s all too easy to get caught up in the idea that happiness can be bought. I find myself flipping through catalogues or fighting the urge to hit the stores when I am unsettled in some way. Material goods will only distract for a short time. Happiness can only be found within. And, the reality? I have the stuff I need.
“I don’t have enough followers/likes/comments/book sales.”
Let’s be honest. It’s nice to have people want to hear what you have to say. It’s nice to be appreciated. respected. It’s nice, but it’s also a slippery slope. It’s easy to get carried away with the numbers game, only feeling validated when they reach some ever-increasing quantity. The problem then is that you never feel satisfied with what you have. I’m working on bringing my yogic mind to blogging and accepting what is rather than wasting energy wishing for more.
How often do we fail to see what we really have? How often do we wish for more than we need? Look at what you have before bemoaning what you want.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go. My cat is yowling for more food.
Hahaha… My cats (8 of them) do the same thing, look at me like I’m nuts even with a full bowl in front of them.
Time… I’d love an extra hour in the day.
Money… I have more than I ever imagined possible, it’s still not enough for me to feel secure in the wake of infidelity.
Stuff… The more stuff you own the more it owns you. I spend so much of that ” time I need” taking care of my stuff, stuff I did not need. My therapist has actually told me to not bring anything in without taking something out. Hard to do when I’m all messed up from infidelity, stuff (shopping) brings me a temporary relief. It’s not until I get it all unloaded that I realize it was a bad idea to acquire more shit.
Followers/likes/comments….. I did my blog for me, not for others. Comments and follows are cool and it’s fun to connect with others going through similar things, but the blog is mine, it’s my therapy it does not matter if even a single other person ever reads it. What matters is that I got what’s in me that needed to be purged out.
BTW… I enjoy reading your blog!
8!?! Yikes! I can’t imagine that yowling coming from an octet of fuzzballs at once:)
Thanks for reading:)
When they all purr at the same time it sounds like a kitty symphony. I love it!
You could sit in the middle of a kitty pile and have it feel like a massage chair!
I think that it’s important to realize WHY you’re blogging. If you’re doing it for the numbers, sure, you’re going to get irritated when those numbers aren’t high enough. If you’re doing it for yourself then the followers are a secondary concern.
Of course, it’s nice to know that people read what you write, comment and give perspective you might not have. It’s just a difficult thing to force.
…and that’s the difficult part for me. I can have an influence, but I cannot control. With things that are entirely out of my control, I have no trouble letting go. I struggle with the things that I can only partially control. For example, I love roller coasters but I struggle to ride a bike down a hill:)
Lean forward over the handlebars and make sure that you’re pointed straight, go into a “racing crouch” if you have a road bike. Don’t pedal if the hill is steep enough, just concentrate on going straight. Slow down safely afterward.
Lol:) Thanks for the tips. Now if I could just make it happen…
I’m going skiing for the first time ever in two weeks. Should be interesting:)
I love your points here, and the one about time hit a nerve. My friend “Annie” spends all her free time with her boyfriend, so much so that she has actually had to take time off from work to get other things done. She is tired all the time and complains that she “just can’t get everything done.” Only very recently has she started to acknowledge that the stress is a result of her priorities, rather than some externally-imposed injustice. Playing is fun, but if the work of life doesn’t get done, the resulting stress make the playing less fun… 🙂
True:) It can also go too far the other way. I used to work all the time and always delayed the play until tomorrow. It’s all about balance:)
I noticed you didn’t include “not enough love”. With enough love, everything else will come.
🙂
I’m so with you on this, I know I have to be more resourceful with my time. But the worst is I spent so long worrying about not having enough work and money, that my drinking habit consumed me and I lost one of the things I loved most, my partner. I’m trying to be more focus now I’m sober, but it’s easy to fall back to old ways.
Wayne
Yes, the price can be high. I’m sorry to hear you found that out the hard way. I wish you best going forward:)
http://lovelyseasonscomeandgo.wordpress.com
yes our dog and cats do the very same thing, but thank goodness they don’t do this at some unwanted hours, like when we are sleeping. I would just go crazy if they did. I know what you mean when you say there is never enough money and toys, because I find that I always want just one more thing too. But I guess your right about learning to appreciate what you do have. That stops you from letting things get out of control in your life, thanks for this wonderful post.
You are welcome:) And, please let me know if you ever discover a way to train cats not to do this!
LOL! who me, I wish I had such luck, but I do watch the Dog Whisper Show, now he has a lot of good tips on getting the dogs in check. I wonder if it would work on cats too.
We’ve tried. The cat just looks at us like we’re stupid:)
OMG! thats funny, I know that look too.
Of course, the dog makes up for it because he lets the cat know in no uncertain terms that she is the uncouth one:)
that’s a house cat for you, I guess that’s why my sister used to let her cat go outdoors all night. She would let her roam the neighborhood all night. And her cat would return home each morning.