Be Appreciative

Like all cats, Bob seems to live in the present. Who knows whether he thinks about the past, or the future? What’s quite clear is that in his day-to-day life, he deals in the here and now.

If he wants to grab a snooze, it doesn’t matter if it is on a cold pavement or on a comfortable sofa. It makes no difference to him. He will curl himself up and nod off, oblivious to whatever is going on around him.

It’s the same at meal times. It doesn’t matter if his food bowl contains a few handfuls of biscuit or a feast of gourmet tuna, he will gobble it down just the same. His attitude is: that’s my meal. I’ll eat what’s in front of me.

I’ve often watched him and wondered whether there’s a lesson there for all of us. The fact is that none of us is ever going to get everything that we want in life. None of us. We can work and strive to make things better, but we will never get all we want. It’s impossible.

And that means that, as we go through life, we have a choice.

We can either get wrapped up in that: be obsessed with what we don’t have, and the fact that we won’t ever have it. Or we can appreciate what we do have.