Luna Tail

As I was loading the dish washer the other day.. my husband there with me, kinda helping, kinda overseeing, I just had to laugh and think. I wasn’t doing it quite the way he thought it should be done. And granted, I’m not the best dishwasher loader in the world. I stack stuff together too much and sometimes it doesn’t get as clean as maybe it could.

But he was getting a little upset and I had to stand back and think that getting upset about the dishwasher being loaded is a little pointless. So I joked with him about it… and I think this is one of the reasons we get along so well. Both of us hate confrontation, we hate to fight, and we don’t like feeling angry. And so we usually let the little stuff, like how we load the dishwasher, just blow on by and we don’t worry about it.

When I’m out and about with friends and their spouses, I am sometimes surprised at the things they fight about. Really… maybe it’s time to just stop, look at what you are fighting about, let go of your ego and your desire to be ‘right’ or to get in the last word, laugh about it, appreciate your significant other, and be happy.

I heard, once, someone say.. what do you want to be, right, or married? Well, I’d rather be happy and so what if the dish washer isn’t loaded just so… or there is dog pee on the floor, or Tatum wants to ‘help’ prep the spare bedroom for painting and in doing so likes to chew up the sand paper? (Dang her toenails are too long.) I’d rather not worry about it. I want my dogs, my husband, and myself, to be happy. So as they say, don’t worry, be happy!

Two things you might hear a lot about if you are in the dog training world are Frustration Tolerance and Impulse Control. Dogs have to learn these things in order to be trained well, and to function in a human based world. Even wild animals learn both of things at a very young age.

I think both of these things translate well in the human world, too. I’ve been thinking about Impulse Control a lot lately. Mainly in the area of eating. I am pretty sure I’m addicted to sugar. And chocolate. And probably salt. I love them all and can eat them all day long.

I get major cravings in the evenings for sugar and chocolate. And usually I give in. Eating right is not only about choosing the right foods. I think a huge part of it is emotionally based, and not giving in to those cravings, and learning about that impulse control. Just because we feel something, either emotionally or physically, giving into it and doing it is not always the best thing!

Sometimes it is. Sometimes we need to follow our gut. But usually in the area of eating, in our society, in our day and age, it’s not. Following the gut, or filling the gut, isn’t a good thing! Eating less, eating healthier, helps us feel better in the long run, and live longer too! And when we lose weight, we can all win trophies for ourselves!

I just got done watching What Dreams May Come with Robin Williams. I like Robin Williams, funny guy. My favorite movie of his is The Fisher King. Great show… it really affected me way back in the 80s (or was it 90s?) when it came out.

Anyway… so What Dreams May Come is seems to be based on the idea of the Christian Heaven and Hell. Now first my disclaimer, I really don’t know much about organized religion. So forgive me if I get anything wrong. But I’m not going to go into that, really. I’m just going to state what my feelings of the afterlife are.

I believe in an afterlife. I think there is something else other than this physical reality. I am not religious, though I like to consider myself some form of pagan. I love the earth and I want to be exactly the same as the earth, plants, and all the animals that live here. I also believe in the supernatural… things that can’t really be explained, like ghosts. Also.. I am a scientist. So my belief of the supernatural is pessimistic at best. Which is, I know, contradictory but it makes sense in my disturbed mind.

So anyway… I find the Christian idea of heaven and hell a bit odd. My personal belief is that after we die… first of all, our small human brains are unable to comprehend what it’s really like. Just like a bird sees the world in bugs and other birds and trees and sky. They cannot comprehend the idea of a computer, or a house or a job. That’s how I think we humans are about what is beyond, before, and after, this existence. This reality. Our brains are not physically able to comprehend it.

This is also why I don’t believe in a Rainbow Bridge for dogs. I really hope that Kip and Jackie, my two dogs who have died, are now existing in some sort of energy form that I can’t comprehend. They are exploring and cruising all over the universe in a way I can’t imagine. I do hope they will think of me every now and again… if thinking is what they do.

I don’t believe humans or animals will go to heaven or hell. I really don’t even believe in punishment for those who do evil. I hope there is… in some way. But I kinda think this reality is a learning experience and we each learn what we learn, then we die, we return to the existence we were in before this physical life, and we go on from there.

I’m a bit afraid of dying… I have so much to do with the dogs. Hopefully it won’t happen any time soon. I’d love to live until I’m 100 years old. I love to see how the world is changing, and what will happen. But I also believe that after we die, we know everything about this physical world, and so we’ll know how it all turns out.