It’s DOGGY Day!

I dig in a lot on this blog site about fighting hard to stay positive.

It’s a pep talk I push at you and also send back at myself, because it’s so difficult and takes a lot of reminding.

So, like a good Jewish mother, remind I will.

There are tsunamis of negativity out there in the news and in our daily experience that could drag us into a pit of despair, frustration, and anger; it takes huge energy and eternal optimism to remain at the surface of an ocean of negativity.

Making this even more challenging is that all my life I’ve felt like a lucky guy who both somehow attracts, and is attracted to, the melancholy couture of the underdogs of humanity and also the suffering of dogs and all other animals.

I have a positive and a negative pole of mourning.

I want everyone to feel like they’ve experienced the luck and good fortune that I have in their brief shot in the billions-to-one lottery win that is life.

I identified with the underdog and felt empathy for those who were tossed in fate’s storms. In early grade school, I would encourage the outcasts to sit beside me on the bus during school trips.

I love this empathy and I hate it simultaneously because I want to play God and relieve the anguish that so many endure… and most times… I can’t.

To attempt at being a superhero to those in need, while dealing with my inner narcissist, is a nasty duel that doesn’t often turn out as I hope.

Early this morning I was standing in the checkout line at my local Superstore, and there was a pair of men right in front of me, unloading their groceries onto the conveyor belt. Honestly, I felt a bit nervous and threatened by their appearance.

Mid 30’s, unkempt, small tears in their dirty t-shirts, gaps in their teeth, some even blackened with decay.

One looked like he may have been First Nations, I can’t be sure. He fidgeted a lot as his items were put through the scanner.

After all the items were through and totalled up, he decided he needed a lighter, so I slid my cart back so he could reach the shelf where chocolate bars and miscellaneous things (like lighters) were held. He grabbed one and put it on the conveyor belt. The cashier scanned it and told him his updated total.

He looked back and forth nervously and said he wanted a chocolate bar. I slid my cart back again and he reached for a Kit Kat but changed his mind and turned to another shelf where he struggled to decide, before slowly picking up two packs of gum and putting them on the conveyor. Once again his total was read out.

He pulled a charge/debit card from his jean’s pocket and held it to the reader. It let out a loud CLONK sound. Payment REFUSED. He did it again… same CLONK. The cashier suggested he try putting the card inside the reader and enter his PIN code.

Head hung low facing the ground, he shook his head, turned first left, then right, then wordlessly walked towards and out the exit door, his three full, plastic grocery bags remained sitting to the left of the cashier.

I could almost feel tears in my eyes as I sensed his shame and disappointment, maybe even rage, I’m just guessing.

Quickly, my emotions turned to anger and disgust when the woman shopper in her 50’s behind me shook her head and muttered disdainfully… “Those people“.

Her judgment utterance was instantaneous and I felt shame again but in a different vein than the shame I held inside just seconds earlier.

She judged the fellow (as did I but in a sad and not critical way). And now I was judging her and making assumptions about her. Talk about a vicious circle and one that highlights so much of what we all see in the world today. 

“The practice – Catch yourself before you are judgmental. How do you stand in awe at what people have to carry rather than in judgment at how they carry it? You are catching yourself all the time.”
Father Gregory Boyle (NYT Times bestselling author)

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We all judge at times (I do frequently), and see the other as a problem.

One little lesson I take away from my years of working in a lab and collecting blood samples from patients goes like this…

The people I encountered everyday were more than likely struggling with an internal worry and fear.

They may have had anemia, or leukemia, or cancer of a thousand varieties, or just an annoying vaginal itch that wouldn’t stop irritating.

Yes, they may have looked normal and healthy, but, with few exceptions, these folks were brawling with an inner voice that said over and over to them that they could be very sick or even dying.

If they snapped at me or didn’t respond to niceties, my negative judgment evolved over time from irritation to patience and compassion. I wasn’t walking in their shoes, and if I was, I would likely act in the same manner I told myself.

So nowadays when I’m in the supermarket and something a bit unusual happens like the incident I’ve talked about above (and no one is in danger), I (YODA)- try to find my inner compassion (and I’m not always successful), because I don’t know the story of their life or this moment.

All the dogs out there, whether two-legged or four-legged deserve my best attempt at understanding.