Do You Know the Answer?
What’s on the menu? I hope having a great day is today’s special. Much like a great meal, a great day takes effort. It doesn’t happen until we decide to add all the special ingredients. These are the ingredients I put into my great day: (Hint:add generously) smiles, gratitude, kindnesses, reaching out to speak/connect to others, reading and viewing things that make me feel better. My great day just got greater writing this post.
The things that one grows tired of—O, be sure
They are only foolish artificial things!
Can a bird ever tire of having wings?
And I, so long as life and sense endure,
(Or brief be they!) shall nevermore inure
My heart to the recurrence of the springs,
Of gray dawns, the gracious evenings,
The infinite wheeling stars. A wonder pure
Must ever well within me to behold
Venus decline; or great Orion, whose belt
Is studded with three nails of burning gold,
Ascend the winter heaven. Who never felt
This wondering joy may yet be good or great:
But envy him not: he is not fortunate.
Today’s Thinking Out Loud reflection is on Aesop’s Fable, Mischievous Dog. Aesop’s Fables is available for free download here.
The Fable
“There was once a Dog who used to snap at people and bite them
without any provocation, and who was a great nuisance to every one
who came to his master’s house. So his master fastened a bell round
his neck to warn people of his presence. The Dog was very proud of
the bell, and strutted about tinkling it with immense satisfaction.
But an old dog came up to him and said, “The fewer airs you give
yourself the better, my friend. You don’t think, do you, that your
bell was given you as a reward of merit? On the contrary, it is a
badge of disgrace.”
Note: Have you met people who like to scream and bully people around? I have. These folks will confront anyone who disagrees with them or doesn’t bend to their desires. They have an insatiable need to be important, to always be right, and to maintain their illusion of power. Like the dog in the story, these folks would do much better with a good dose of humiliation. They mistake fear for adoration. It’s always better when we set our ego aside another and understand that we’re not always right; that other people have good ideas and constantly attacking others is not the best way to solve problems.
There are times when problems we face seem to grow larger than our capacity to solve them. Don’t quit. Step back, break the problem down into small pieces. One piece is a lot easier to tackle than a hundred pieces. Before you know it, one piece at a time and you’ll be your problems’ master.
Pillowed and hushed on the silent plain,
Wrapped in her mantle of golden grain,
Wearied of pleasuring weeks away,
Summer is lying asleep to-day,—
Where winds come sweet from the wild-rose briers
And the smoke of the far-off prairies fires;
Yellow her hair as the golden rod,
And brown her cheeks as the prairie sod;
Purple her eyes as the mists that dram
At the edge of some laggard sun-drowned stream;
But over their depths the lashes sweep,
For Summer is lying to-day asleep.
The north wind kisses her rosy mouth,
His rival frowns in the far-off south,
And comes caressing her sunburnt cheek,
And Summer awakes for one short week,—
Awakes and gathers her wealth of grain,
Then sleeps and dreams for a year again.
