What can we learn from dogs? Have you ever pondered that question? This post is a little bit of fun, but there is also a serious message behind it. If you want to learn something important about life, it might be as simple as getting a dog. Let me explain.
These days, there are so many unnatural distractions in life. It almost seems like modern life wants to disconnect us from nature. We use cars, planes, elevators, air-conditioning, walk on pavements, wear shoes all the time, communicate via electronic devices, and wear synthetic clothes just to name a few. When was the last time you walked barefoot on the grass? I’m sure most of us don’t do this very often. Modern life certainly disconnects us from nature (unfortunately, being connected to nature doesn’t make profits, but that’s another story).
Often I think that the main challenge in our lives is to reconnect with nature and let nature be our guide.
Owning a dog gives us direct access to a real connection with nature. Dogs (and other pets, of course) are just natural. They are parts of nature (as are we really). They have no worries and they just flow through life enjoying the experience of whatever arises.
It’s nice to just sit on the grass with your dog and simply enjoy the world.
The only problems that come along for dogs these days is when we start feeding them artificial and/or cooked food. When they start eating the foods that we think are normal, or engineered to be good for them, they start to get some of the diseases we also think are “normal”. It’s really rather sad all round.
What can we learn from dogs? – An interesting graphic
One of the reasons I’m making this post if because of the graphic displayed below. This was distributed by Nick Ortner and I found it very powerful.
There are a lot of life lessons in these words for me, and every time I look at my dog these days some of these lessons come back into my mind.
Our modern lives are very complicated and detached from nature. Maybe real happiness lies in a simpler life more deeply connected to nature.
What can we learn from dogs? – a bit of fun
I found this fun video by Chris Grant that also contains a powerful message to us all.
The real message here is that true happiness lies completely in the present moment. It’s sort of obvious really. If you not happy in the “now” then your not happy – full stop. However, I’d guess that most of us have thoughts like “I’ll be happy next year if such-and-such happens” or “how can I be happy because of such-and-such that happened in my past”. We let things in the past or future destroy our opportunity to be happy in the “now”.
What can we learn from dogs?
Dogs show us that every moment of every day is an opportunity to be happy. Every one of these is as good as every other. Rather than waste them with worries of modern life, we can be grateful for the wonders of nature and everything we have, enjoy the world and be deeply happy.
This is a constant struggle for me. Most of the time I’m spending my “now” moments worrying about the future or the past. I’m getting better at it though and less of the precious “nows” are slipping through my fingers.
Grasping and enjoying every moment that we’ve been given is hard to do, of course, but clearly a worthy goal.
What do you think of all this? We all have acquired different wisdom along our life journeys. Please share yours in the comments below.
Related Links
- In an earlier post called Original Knowledge – where does it come from?, I noted that we can really only learn new things from nature or that strange thing called “inspiration”.
- Present Moment Life Choices – the key to life?
- The Miracle Of Mindfulness
- Therapy Dogs: Seeking a helping hand, finding a paw – how dogs can support our mental health, from breedingbusiness.com
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