Acceptable Adjustments: Reflections on Pet Ownership and Human Nature
When my daughter found a stray cat, she called the humane society and decided to keep him. We took care of everything necessary, and now he is called Ben. Very soon, Ben went into the washroom, grabbed hold of the toilet paper, and you can guess what happened. Now, the toilet paper goes in a basket, and my towel, which keeps getting dropped on the floor, is placed on a door hook instead of a hanger.
Blind strings were pulled, picture frames from tables were broken, some ornaments were thrown out because they were damaged, and we had to adjust to the need to become nose-blind. Despite these many acceptable adjustments, we still have a cat named Ben.
Ever wonder why we make these acceptable adjustments? Why do we get a cat or a dog and take the responsibility to walk it every day, regardless of the weather? And the kicker is that we have to pick up the poop as well. Why is it so important for humans to take care of their pets? Why do we sometimes care more for our pets than for other human beings? What is the driving force behind all this? These questions made me think about acceptable adjustments.
I was surprised that it took a cat to inspire me to understand acceptable adjustments. When you think about flexibility, we all have it inside us to make acceptable adjustments. It’s just that some of us can’t adjust and accommodate changes, thus can’t see the potential and power of love. Naturally and directly, it is ingrained and connected to our core, where we are raw animals. (Read “Love Triangle”)
As social creatures, we can’t live our lives relying solely on intellect. The power of our nature can rob us of happiness and contentment. Ignoring our emotions and the chemical-related satisfactions of life leads to substandard living. As intellectual beings, we also can’t live without intellect, so it’s up to each individual to create balance.
I personally believe in zigzagging through intellect and nature because emotional intellect holds very powerful cards, especially in a mortal life.
Love is a core element, not just installed by our education but brought along from before birth. Our education can change people and turn them into beasts. By nature, we are actually ripened and dressed with potential human jewelry before the fear-based education of prejudice. Just look at us interacting as babies.
There is another reason we can’t ignore the importance of love: it affects our emotions and can bring extreme happiness, sadness, and mental health problems. If a child loses love, it can have a permanent impact on their life.
Watch out for the loss of love or robbing others of love in the name of God or your belonging group. In my view, robbing someone of love is a spiritual crime because if it hurts you, you shouldn’t inflict the same pain on others.
Ask yourself why it hurts to lose love, and you will open up a different book you haven’t read yet. Emotional intellect is needed to solve our modern-day problems. Our wars, individual animosities, and related tolls on humanity are all related to the loss of love. (Read “Love Triangle”)
Your life is your project, and you are the CEO. If you have a problem, recognize it, acknowledge it, accept it, own it, and then do something about it. If we all start doing something about it, we will go places we’ve never been.
If you have extreme beliefs, always remember your mortality and your jewelry of compassion, forgiveness, sacrifice, and love. That is what makes you human. Wear your jewelry not only for your belonging group but for yourself and all humanity, because you are the thread of that fabric. The stronger you are, the stronger the fabric.
If you have prejudice in you, still acknowledge your mortality because a temporary journey should not be accompanied by inner demons of judgment. They don’t only harm others; they also have the potential to rob you of your happiness. In a temporary life, there is nothing more important than your inner happiness and contentment.
Thinking you are superior to others can erode your happiness because, in the end, you know deep inside that you will live and die like everyone else. You have been fed the wrong information to believe you are better. If you are better, why do you share the same fate? You get hungry, sick, old, and die the same way. What makes you special is that you are a spiritual part of the same body of God or humanity. Genetically, you have passed the same test as others, so own it to be a human being. Wear your jewelry with pride, even if your parents have the disorder of prejudice. You don’t have to be exactly like your parents.
Our problems are related to our education, so accepting that we are evolving organisms would help acknowledge that our knowledge has never been complete. Straying from ancestral education is actually addressing the foundational problem.
If an individual’s family instills prejudice, he or she has to work against it as they become adults. A logical look at prejudice involves understanding its source: the misunderstanding of our sense of belonging, which is the culprit in the foundation of our wars and collective disputes. So, start making some acceptable adjustments.
I saw the Blue Jays’ excited fans on the news, screaming and literally out of breath with emotions. I couldn’t help but think about the sense of belonging and the mixed blend of fans and even the team. Looking at the athletes, they are all mixed: Black, White, Latinos, or from other parts of the world, but they play for the Blue Jays, a Canadian team. The fans were from all races but proud of being Canadian.
The teams are composed of players from all over the world, but they play for certain nations. Nations can be proud or upset about winning or losing, so what is at play? It is the sense of belonging to the nation, which has changed significantly in the last fifty years. The teams are created by players to compete for a prize. You could be a Canadian playing for the Americans, or vice versa. What is blending all the differences? Is this the evolution people are afraid of? If it is harmless in sports, it is harmless in countries and religions as well. We just have to overcome our prejudice. We need to keep evolving to spread tolerance. This can only happen if we all learn to make some acceptable adjustments.
If we are all given total freedom and equal rights, we should be able to live in melting pot societies. This is only possible with the education of the sense of belonging to humanity as a whole instead of a group. Israel can only solve its problems with equality. By force, there is a lot of love lost, leading to perpetual killings and more love lost. Behaviors can’t change. The conflicts can continue for thousands of years if we don’t acknowledge the ramifications of love lost.
The majority of societies, especially the developed ones, have changed. Just look at the populations. There are not only people from all over the world, but also mixed and biracial new generations. These factors compel societies to accommodate changes and adapt to the changing times.
Conservatives lost badly in the elections because they are not changing according to the population. Equal individual human rights should be a must in every political party. Conservatives shamelessly, unethically, and unlawfully chose Christians from the Syrian refugees because they want the country to be religious. Canada is a secular democracy with laws that protect individual human rights.
Fighting change is conservative and rooted in old group or religious ideologies. Make sure not to stand on the wrong side because time will judge you in the future. Make some acceptable adjustments now, or time will leave you behind, just like the Bloc Quebecois. Language policing in this day and age is a joke and is related to extreme prejudice, which is against human rights. We all need acceptable adjustments to help us cross the lines of prejudice and become part of humanity.
I learned at an early age about the power of being a social creature. I always went to the movies with friends. Once, I wanted to go, but my friend did not have money, which made me realize that I was willing to pay his way regardless of not having much money myself.
Sometimes we need to understand the purpose of money. It is there for us to use during our living years, and whatever makes us happy, we need to buy that. If we look deeper, we willingly spend money on others: family, friends, community, nation, and religions all get their share.
Mates have an even bigger share because, as men or women, we go to school to get a job, buy a home, find a mate, and make a family. It’s almost like we are hypnotized. There was a term called “twitterpated” that I heard in a cartoon program while watching TV with my kids.
By the power of nature, we dance to the rhythm of life yet believe we are using our free will. The orders of nature have so much power that we can’t control them, regardless of our education and evolution. Babies keep coming.
We work hard to get a mate, yet we don’t respect and trust their contributions. We look at them as enemies and react strongly with hate because of our potential love loss. We care more about pets, pick up their poop, and do whatever is needed, but not for our mates. If everyone put the same effort into their relationships with their mates as they do with their pets, we would have a very different divorce rate. It is the love loss that makes people hate each other and unable to make acceptable adjustments.
I did not want to go to the movies by myself. Why? There is a big why. Why do we gladly spend our money on our social needs? Why do we invite friends? Why do we get together? What makes us want to have pets? Why does a dog get special treatment, taking it for a walk and picking up its poop? What is so powerful behind all that, making us make acceptable adjustments?
We go far for a dog or a cat but not for a mate. Is it really the mate or our ego? It is our self-pleasing, pleasure-seeking nature, with hormones running the show. Once we lose the chemistry, we start thinking with our mind and how much it hurts to lose the love we had. The pain is related to self, not the mate. What we lose is love; hence, it is love that gives happiness and contentment, not the mate. We have to continue to change and adjust if we want to stay happy.
There is another culprit that I found in my young life: the dependency on our partners. We change partners and hate them once the partnership becomes dependent. Love changes to dependency; hence, we start hating. We only lose love when we become dependent, but if we share our lives equally, without burdening each other with all the responsibilities, love does not change to dependency. This is another important acceptable adjustment in our personal life.
There is another area of prejudice: a child born out of wedlock. I recently met someone who had this problem in his life. He went through major grief because of this. People need to understand that we are not created by the couple alone but are part of nature’s will. Nobody should be treated as though they don’t belong or are not welcome. We must remember that we don’t own this world; we are only passing through.
When you look at human history, there are many prejudices related to class, caste, and economic situations. Those born into poor families are considered worthless, yet there is nothing wrong with being born into a poor family. We are not here by choice but by nature’s will. When you think about this, it’s easier to understand the logical necessity of acceptable adjustments.
We must accept that people need equal opportunities and a sense of belonging in the overall fabric of society. The internet revolution can serve this purpose by eliminating misinformation and showing the richness of diversity. Acceptable adjustments are necessary to become a part of humanity. We must extend the same courtesies to each other as we do to our pets because we all belong to the same social network.
If we start acknowledging the reality of our interconnectedness and our mutual need for love and support, we can make the necessary acceptable adjustments to create a more tolerant, loving, and inclusive world.