Hannibal is half German Shepherd, half Australian Shepherd, and at the age where he is completely full of piss and vinegar. He is every bit as tall as me when he stands on his back feet so occasionally he decides that he is the boss.
This evening as I sat in front of the fan and ignored the 90° heat my god-daughter called. Could I pick her up and take her home so she could avoid a miserable walk?
I agreed. I’ve been there, after all. People have done the same for me in the past and I am a firm believer in paying it forward.
As I went to leave, Hannibal gave me this sad, disappointed look so I grabbed the leash and snapped it on. We’ve taken drives to the park in the past so I figured it would be a good treat.
To my surprise, instead of just hopping inside when I opened the truck door, Hannibal dug in his heels. He was not getting in the truck with me, period!
He pulled at me. I pulled at him. We ended up wrestling on the ground. It was one of those moments where I knew that, if I backed down, that I would have trouble with that mutt until the end of time.
I won.
We picked up god-daughter and took her home. I got him out of the truck and walked him around a bit just to see if he would show his butt once more.
He started, paused, took one long look at the expression on my face, and hopped back in the truck. I drove home, reveling in my victory.
My home felt like a blast furnace as I triumphantly entered and I realized that, like my dog, I was being stubborn to the point of stupid.
I own an air conditioner. I simply refused to install it because I wanted to be tough and stand up to the heat.
But there’s no sense in that, any more than there was any sense in my dog deciding that he was not going to hop into my truck.
I installed the air conditioner. It is currently chugging away, removing the heat from this house.
Sometimes we need to examine ourselves. We have to check up on our heart and ask about our motivations. For me, watching my dog tilt at the windmill otherwise known as myself, I realized that I was looking into a mirror. I am just as stubborn as my dog.
As I head to the bath to wash away the mud from the battle, I realize that I am richer from this experience.
I have learned about myself today.
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Have you ever had an experience that taught you something about yourself? Please share your story in the comments below.
6 responses to “The Art of Self-Awareness”
This is me right now. Stewing in 90+ degree temps. Telling people I don’t need AC because I’m tough. Yesterday I capitulated and bought an AC window unit. It comes on Wednesday. My daughter was so happy saying she worried about me in the heat. I’m 73 and stubborn, but now I will be cool.
I feel that so hard, Chris! I have been dealing with the heat and humidity because it was NOT gonna get the best of me!
I didn’t realize what I was doing until that stupid mutt showed me the error of my ways.
But older generations grew up without AC so we look at it more as a luxury than a necessity. Is that how you view air conditioning?
I confess that I consider it a luxury even now since I grew up without it lol.
Yes. Definitely a luxury. I don’t even use the car AC. Windows down, baby. And come winter, even though we live in western PA, the furnace does not go on until Nov. 1st. That’s what warm clothes are for. I always tell people I’m giving my grandkids stories to tell their kids. I come from 2 generations of single mothers with little money to raise kids. I, too, was a single mom with little money. So there’s a lot of history about what is a necessity and a luxury.
Sometimes I believe the younger generations do not truly understand the difference between necessity and luxury. I wonder how they would handle having to live the way we did when we were young.
There was no such thing as air conditioning when I was a child (unless you were quite well off). We barely had a fan in school, and forget it if you rode the bus. I can even recall hospitals without air conditioning back then.
Given that I grew up on well water, I wonder how the young ones would react if they had to carry water in a bucket – or use an outhouse, even!
One thing about it: we would be fine if the electricity went out in summer! Might be a bit toasty, but we’d be fine lol!
Some of that heat tolerance might be because we were kids. I lived in the city but my cousins had well water and an outhouse and we didn’t think anything of it. And we played outside whatever the weather was doing.
You’re probably right, Linda. I also read somewhere ages ago that when infants were kept super warm that they had a much higher heat tolerance (and a lower tolerance for cold) than infants raised with the reverse.
I freeze in typical air conditioning temperatures. I’m wearing a sweater at my job because of it so they may be onto something in addition to the fact that us older generations played outside and lived without air conditioning.