I have shared my home with multiple cats for many years and through observing them as they interact with me, their environment and each other, I’ve learned some valuable life lessons. While we humans are definitely superior in terms of our ability to plan, reason, think in the abstract and understand complex ideas, when it comes to getting one’s priorities straight and dealing effectively with life’s daily challenges I would argue that cats are way smarter than a great many of us.
Here’s why.
Life Lesson #1: Remember to Live in the Now
My cats are very much focused on the present. Once they’ve finished their breakfast they then take a nap rather than sit and stare at their empty food dish thinking about dinner. When they’re in the mood to play, they play, when they’re in the mood to sleep, they sleep, when they’re in the mood to be cuddled they let me know in no uncertain terms, and when they’re done cuddling, they’re done.
Many of us, on the other hand, live for the tomorrow that often never comes – I’ll feel better when I lose some weight, I’ll take a vacation when I have more time, I’ll spend time with my kids when work slows down a bit. In other words, we tend put off until tomorrow what we could and perhaps should be enjoying today.
Why? Perhaps it’s because we have a false sense of security about the passage of time and the constancy of our circumstances. Many of us therefore assume we have all the time in the world to enjoy ourselves later, after we’ve accomplished some predetermined goal that will supposedly make us happier and more fulfilled than we are right now. But time moves along more quickly than we realize when we’re not paying attention to it and our life circumstances can change overnight. The Covid-19 pandemic is certainly proof of that!
Of course it goes without saying we all must consider our future and put some careful thought into planning for it. I’m certainly not advocating irresponsibility, but I am suggesting we need to find the right balance between living for today and planning for tomorrow. Life is full of uncertainty, so I think we could all benefit from learning to better appreciate what we have today because it could well be gone tomorrow.
There is a wonderful saying which, according to Wikipedia, is generally regarded as anonymous but sometimes attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt: Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery and today is a gift. That’s why they call it the present.
I now have this posted on the wall of my home office.
Life Lesson #2: Focus On What You Have Versus What You Don’t Have
When my cats get into mischief (and they often do!) and I need to reclaim their latest “treasure”, once they realize they’re not getting it back they don’t stamp their little paws and meow in frustration, they simply move on to something else. If they can’t convince me that it’s dinner time an hour earlier than usual they don’t sit and pine away by their food bowl, instead they find something else to keep them occupied until Mommy says it’s dinner time.
I know many people who spend far too much time and energy wanting more as opposed to appreciating what they have and the result is they are constantly tired, stressed, depressed and in poor health. Of course, I would always encourage people to want more for themselves and to actively pursue that which they want. However, I believe the right mindset during that pursuit is crucial to long term success, health and happiness.
Unhappy people tend to focus more on what they don’t have (a negative, defeatist attitude) rather than on what they need to do in order to obtain what they want (a positive, proactive attitude). While we all tend to feel sorry for ourselves every once in a while, the “have” people will shrug off their temporary feelings of hopelessness and move forward, whereas the “have not” people tend to be overwhelmed and paralyzed by their sorrow. When two people are confronted by the same problem, their individual mindset (“have” versus “have not”) will determine how well they cope with the situation.
Let me illustrate my point using an example I’m sure most people can relate to at some level.
Let’s say you hate your job. I mean, you really hate it. You hate it so much that you dread going to bed on Sunday night because you know that when you wake up it will be Monday morning and the start of another work week. You’re so miserable on the job you can barely be civil to your coworkers who then start to avoid you, which makes you feel isolated and more depressed than ever. You struggle to cope throughout the day and arrive home exhausted, barely able to feed yourself before collapsing in front of the television in a feeble attempt to distract yourself from the fact you have to do it all again tomorrow. Every once in a while you tell yourself you’ve got to get your act together and find another job, but the effort of putting together a resume and responding to the job postings is just too much for you to handle at the moment.
Constant negative stress is exhausting, and eventually it weakens and overwhelms both mind and body. Many years ago when I was in a similar position, I should have found another job long before my family doctor suggested medication and perhaps some counseling to go with it. But all I could think of at the time was how horrible my situation was, which took away my ability to focus on changing it. (Fortunately hearing from my doctor that in his opinion I should be medicated shocked me into action and I was able to move on to a much happier situation.)
The above is a rather extreme example of negative, “have not” thinking, but I gave it to better illustrate my point, which is this. My “have not” attitude (I don’t have a job I like) prevented me from appreciating what I did have at the time, which was the ability to change my situation.
Maybe you don’t have one big huge issue like that to deal with right now, but think for a moment about all the little things that you don’t like about yourself or your life situation. How do you feel inside when you think about them? Tired, resigned and perhaps a little sad, or energetic, optimistic and looking forward to making positive changes?
I’ve learned that many small issues can add up to create just as much stress as one big issue and in some ways are more dangerous to health and happiness. It’s easy to dismiss the smaller issues without realizing how much coping with all of them is adding to your stress levels and thus negatively impacting on your physical health and emotional well being.
There’s a lot of talk by the “experts” about not sweating the small stuff, but I can’t say I completely agree in all cases. While we shouldn’t obsess about the small stuff (or the big stuff either!), I think we need to take a look at the small stuff and make the effort to change what we can, whether that be the situation itself or perhaps our attitude towards it. The peace of mind gained from fixing all the small stuff will make it easier to cope with the bigger stuff.
And when you catch yourself falling victim to a “have not” moment, start appreciating what you do have, which is the ability to change your situation.
Life Lesson #3: Don’t Stress, Remove The Stressors
When the sun spot my cats are sleeping on begins to move across the living room, the cats move with it. And when my cats decide they’ve had enough cuddling for the moment, they get up and move out of arm’s reach. My cats waste neither time nor energy trying to cope with stress unnecessarily; instead they simply remove the stressors.
And I suggest we humans could benefit from learning to do the same.
For example, if the lunchroom discussion topics generally focus on this person’s lousy attitude or that person’s personal problems and you’re tired of listening to the constant negativity, eat your lunch someplace else (or during a different time slot). If your partner refuses to take out the garbage on a timely basis, then renegotiate who’s responsible for what chores.
Before you accuse me of insulting your intelligence by stating the obvious, keep in mind that it’s only obvious if you’re aware of what’s stressing you. I have to admit that more than once I’ve been guilty of coming home feeling somewhat “testy” and when my husband asked me what my problem was I’ve had to admit to myself that I really didn’t know. This in turn made me feel a little childish, which only fueled my irritation level and caused me to snap back “Never mind. Just leave me alone!”
Honestly, I think we can become so accustomed to being annoyed by one thing after another that after a while we stop recognizing life’s little irritants and are no longer aware of what’s really bothering us. All we know is that something or someone is getting on our nerves. If we aren’t able to recognize the problem we aren’t able to fix it, so that after a while feeling out of sorts can become such a habit that it starts to feel, well… normal.
For anyone feeling this way, I suggest you learn to recognize exactly what is bothering you and then for those situations you can control, remove the stressors. You obviously can’t do too much about the jerk who cuts you off on the highway (unless you decide to get radical and take the bus) or the annoying gas station attendant who talks nonchalantly to his co-worker despite the long line up at the register when you’re already running late for work. However, you can replace the leaky kitchen faucet or oil the squeaky bathroom door that wakes you up in the night when your kids get up to use the washroom.
The advantages of removing those stressors you can do something about are twofold. First, you will certainly alleviate a portion of your current stress level, which is always a good thing. But more importantly, by doing so you will feel a greater sense of control over your life, which will lift your spirits and help make dealing with those stressors you can’t control a little easier.
Life Lesson #4: Learn To Think Outside the Box
Because my cats live for the here and now and focus on what they have versus dwelling on what they don’t, they have an insatiable, childlike curiosity for everything and how it could possibly be used for their own personal benefit. Cardboard boxes make great forts, stove tops make wonderfully cozy beds in the dead of winter when the oven is on, little puppies are fun to trap on the main staircase…
We humans, on the other hand, tend to be so focused on planning for tomorrow how to get what we don’t have today that we generally don’t slow down long enough to objectively evaluate our circumstances and see how we can leverage them to our greatest benefit. Instead, I believe much of the time we’re on automatic and therefore recognize one course of action only, either because it’s habit or because it’s expected or because it’s what your family and circle of friends have always done.
The problem with that is when we have preset ideas of how things are, it closes us to the possibilities of how things could be and consequently potential opportunities are missed. A “no” is seen only as a “no” and not a potential “yes” down the road. A great investment is passed on because someone is so focused on having a certain sized home they don’t recognize that location will provide an opportunity to flip within two years at a major profit. What could have been the love of one’s life never materialized because an initial first impression did not fit a preconceived notion of what an ideal partner should be.
So I think we could all benefit from slowing down enough to start thinking outside the box. Let’s tear away the restrictive veil trapping our creativity and closing our minds to the exciting possibilities of what could be. A “no” can be a “yes” later on down the road if we change our approach slightly and exercise a little patience. Our dream house can be bought and paid for sooner than we think, if we’re able to envision a more creative means of paying for it. The love of our life could be the next person we meet, if we can fully accept and appreciate them for who they are.
One thing I’ve learned through major self-reflection over the past year is that valuable life lessons can be learned from anyone, anywhere – even cats! We just need to train our minds to look below the surface and see beyond the obvious. We don’t necessarily need to look too deep or see too far; most times simplicity is right in plain sight once we train ourselves to recognize it.
Don’t think that just because pampered house cats have less complicated issues to deal with that their lives are so much easier than ours. Yes, our duties and responsibilities are more complex, but so is our capacity to deal with them. My fifty plus years of living, with some parts of it more rocky than others, has taught me perhaps the most valuable life lesson of all: Life isn’t all that complicated, but we humans do have a tendency to make it that way.
