Our dog, Bear, loves going on walks.
He’s male and he likes to sniff every pole, mailbox, and tree we pass, and pee on half of them himself.
It’s mechanical for him. He sees a pole, he hustles over to it, and he sniffs it.
"Dude! It smells like pee! They all just smell like pee!!"
I’m sure there’s a world for him inside that smell. Details that you and I likely can’t believe he gets from a smell.
Yet, it’s still just another tree that smells like pee.
And it’s got me thinking:
What are the pee trees in our own lives that we simply can’t help sniffing?
The distractions in our lives that keep us from doing our real work? They’re pee trees.
The same petty arguments we have with our spouse, our kids, our colleagues? They’re pee trees too.
The endless stream of judgments about ourself, others, and institutions? Pee trees.
Complaints. Pee trees.
Excuses. Pee trees.
Justifications. Pee trees.
Resigning ourselves. Pee trees.
Being cynical. Pee trees.
Putting our egos - our small self, our false self - first. Pee trees.
For most of us, the pee trees we can’t help sniffing are fundamentally the same old stories we wake up into and go to bed with each night. Stories like:
Life is hard.
Life is unfair.
People don’t get me.
There’s something wrong.
There’s something wrong with me.
There’s something wrong with them.
People don’t treat each other kindly anymore.
I’m not good enough at this. They’re not good enough at that.
I’m too much, they’re too much, and we’re too much.
I’m screwed.
I’m unlucky.
Humanity is doomed.
Evil is prevailing.
The urge to sniff those trees is real. It’s just like our attraction to drama - it’s there and it’s a part of the mechanism of human being.
We’re addicted to sniffing these trees, but we don’t have to sniff them - we don’t have to react from the urge to sniff them. We can allow the urge to be there.
If my dog could just get this: those trees all smell like pee, and if he could just be with and allow the urge to sniff them to be there without reacting from it, he could move beyond smelling each and every tree.
And something else would become possible.
For him and us.
Much love. ❤️
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