Tag: life hacks

Ooops, I Forgot to Add This

As my regular readers know I keep this blog as a reference to thoughts that resonate with me and then I often share my thoughts about those thoughts. I read an excellent article this morning (and I just had my memory jogged when I read something about “boring”). Karen Nimmo is a writer and psychologist from New Zealand. I love her simple and no-nonsense style of writing and thinking. Her article is entitled “What To Know Before You Have a Mid-Life Crisis”. She starts the article with this quote:

“My old man shouts ‘Godammit, you should listen to my 58 years of experience’; but what he had was one year of experience repeated 58 times.” — writings of James A. Michener

Nimmo discusses that it is quite prevalent for people from the ages of 40-60 to start questioning all of their life choices which have brought them to this particular stage in their lives. She uses this article to warn people to tread carefully during a crisis time like this, and to not act too impulsively or aggressively. Crises times do not mean you need to “blow up” your current life. Your life might just need a little finessing. Nimmo makes these four points:

+ “The grass on the other side of the fence is often brown.”

+ “If you are bored, you may be boring.” Nimmo makes the point if you choose to make the goal of being less boring yourself, you may not need others to amuse you so much.

+ “If you want a magic fix, start saving for Disneyland.” Nimmo says that there is no such thing as a magical wand coming to save you. You must figure out what will be more satisfying to you and take steps towards that satisfaction.

+ “Pain has a very long tail (but not if you are mean).” In Nimmo’s words, “if you are a nice(ish) person, hit the pause button before you hurt people you care about — because it’ll hurt you too. It’s hard, if not impossible, to build a happy future on the back of other people’s pain.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

“Dog” Training

Our two male dogs have a love/hate relationship. Similar to my sons, when they were little boys, “rough play” can change on a dime to “fight club”. Years ago, I remember noticing that when my sons were playing flag football in our side yard with their friends, more time was actually spent playing “tackle football” over the interpretation of “the rules”, than any real game time. Still, even after a nasty, loud, teeth gnashing scuffle, our fur boys are always back to being friends in a matter of minutes, much like my sons and their friends were, on the sports fields.

In talking to a dog trainer/animal behaviorist about how to quell this situation with Ralphie and Trip (our male dogs), the trainer stated that with dogs living together it comes down to two things: the energy of the people of the house, and being proactive versus reactive. When the people carry a calm, decisive, in control energy about themselves, the dogs better understand the expectations of their behavior and are more likely to comply. And by noticing one of the dogs giving the other a hard stare and ending it right away, or putting a stop to frenzied play that could soon turn aggressive, this proactive behavior is much more effective, that completely losing it, by trying to stop a dog brawl in action. These two action plans have worked very well, and our household is happier for it, both the human and the canine members.

It struck me that these two rules apply not only to dog training, but to life in, general. The energy which we carry around is sensed by everyone and everything around us. I recently read that you can give yourself more confident energy if you strike the Wonder Woman pose before you do anything hard. I’ve tried it and it works. Confident energy is sensed by everyone and is responded to accordingly. (Either that or people give wide berth these days, to a strange woman in a Wonder Woman stance 😉 ) Being proactive in any situation, saves a lot of energy, resources and heartache, versus constantly putting out fires, by being reactive.

I have a sneaking suspicion that most dog training has very little to do with the dogs, and much more about training humans. The trainers just have to keep us confident by reminding us that these simple life hacks, which work to keep a happy pack at home, can also get us far in any situation in life. The trainers have to call it “dog training” in order to protect our fragile egos. Dogs aren’t “smart” enough to have overblown egos. Of course, the best reminder from my recent call with the trainer was that snacks and positive reinforcements do wonders. On that note, I think that it is time to fix myself a morning snack.