Heather was about to get onto a work call and had 2 seconds to answer my questions “what should I write about?” She pointed at Harley, our cat, so here I go.
It’s very easy to give human emotions and traits to an animal you spend a lot of time with. Cats and dogs do seem to do a lot of things that are humanish, but I think it would be more accurate to say that humans, dogs and cats do a lot of things that are mammalish. As we should, there is an enormous amount of genetic material that is shared between all living things, and there is a lot more similar with cats and dogs, and human if we were to compare any of them to trees, insects, or flowers.
So, given all of this similarity, here are some of the more interesting / important things that I could learn from Harley that will make my life better immediately:
- Eat whenever you feel like it. If you eat when you feel like it, you’ll keep your blood sugar level in the ideal range and be more effective and productive. We tend to overeat when we believe that we won’t be able to eat for a period of time so eating smaller amounts of food more regularly throughout the day will help us learn to eat appropriate quantities of food.
- Drink water often. Being adequately hydrated helps every bodily function. There really isn’t much more to say about it.
- Sleep whenever you need to and move around when it feels right. The body lets you know what it needs in order to feel and function in an optimal way. Forcing it to sleep when it doesn’t need sleep is close to impossible, forcing it to exercise when it needs to rest doesn’t yield the best results. Harley doesn’t exercise much, but when she needs to she just goes for it.
- Go through the closet and bring out the most appealing pieces of clothing that you can find. Harley drags out clothing that she finds interesting and then she’ll fall asleep on it. I don’t know why she does this, but it makes her feel good; kind of like how I do when I wear my favorite jeans and shirt.
- Be close to members of a couple when they are home alone, but give them their space when they are home together. Harley sits beside me when I’m writing or when I’m watching TV. She does the same thing when Heather is working from home. But when one of us arrives home, and after the normal greetings, Harley gives us our space. She’ll sit near by, but not nearly as close as when one of us is home together.
- Do everything with all of your passion, if you are going to do it at all. Harley seems to love chasing the red dot of a laser pointer. Although she has never caught it, her eyes widen every time that dot appears and she gets fired-up and ready to move. Regardless of the outcome, she focuses and works intensely to capture it.
- Contribute as much as you can in the way that you can. Harley drags towels and socks up and down the stairs to and from the laundry room. It’s mostly useless, it takes her a long time to do it, but it is all she can do to help out so we keep giving her praise and food.