To see how to enjoy life, start by watching a cat
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More easy recipes for beating stress
Cats are masters of focus, conservation of energy, and making sure they enjoy life whenever they can. We could learn a lot from them about how to cope with increasingly stressful lives.
Don’t waste energy
Be active and quick when it’s needed. The rest of the time, chill out.
All cats, from the smallest domesticated variety to lions and tigers, are skilled in conserving their energy. When they need to be active, they are some of the swiftest and most powerful predators around. the rest of the time, they appear amongst the laziest of creatures. There’s a lesson there.
Too many human beings expend large amounts of energy to no purpose, rushing around when it’s not necessary. All that does is sap your vitality for them times when you really do need to give life your all.
Relax and take the long view.
Short-term success comes at a high cost if the result is long-term problems. It’s easy to be dazzled by immediate prospects or pressing concerns.
A cat will expend a certain amount of energy on chasing potential prey. If it looks as if the chase isn’t going to succeed in a reasonable period, it simply walks away and saves its energy for a better time.
When I was a child, and got upset by something to the point where I was losing perspective, my grandfather used to say: “Relax. It’ll all be the same in 10 years time.” Of course, I thought that was a silly statement, but time has proved it true. It’s amazing how many triumphs and disasters are forgotten in far less than 10 years; and how many times we look back on something and wish we had the power to change it, though it seemed like the most obvious thing to do at the time.
Don’t go faster than you feel comfortable.
This is good advice for driving and living. If you can’t handle your vehicle safely at 75 miles per hour, don’t try driving at 90. You’ll be a danger to yourself and everyone else. One of the reasons why so many unfortunate teenage drivers kill or injure themselves and their passengers is that they drive too fast for their ability, often egged on by “friends” who dare them to go faster.
It’s much the same in your life and career. There will be a pace that suits the way you are and your current levels of skill and knowledge. Going faster, even if the boss is yelling at you, is a recipe for more mistakes, greater stress, and greater risk of a real disaster. Never do it.
You can persuade dogs to rush around until they are totally exhausted. Kittens and young cats will play with you energetically only for as long as it suits them; then they just lie down and refuse to do any more. Older cats usually regard playing with humans with complete contempt.
Don’t rush to judgment or jump to hasty conclusions.
Today’s fashion for proving decisiveness by hasty, snap decisions is a foolish fad. Anyone can make a snap judgment. It takes courage, intelligence, and patience to make a good one.
Your path through life is driven by many, many decisions, some big, most rather small. Chance and circumstances constantly change the rules for you. If you don’t change with them, a good many of these decisions will be taken on an incorrect basis. The passing of time is a wonderful way to sort out what’s true and what only looked true.
Cats spend a great deal of time napping. Sleeping on decisions is good practice for humans too.
Take it gently. Slow and steady usually beats fast and erratic.
Dogs are often excitable and dramatic, cats rarely so. Unless forced, most cats will retreat in the face of sudden action — at least until they work out what to do. Few animals can be more patient than a cat when it wants to be; and few can lose interest quite as quickly when too much rushing about is required.
The media, including the business media (and many bloggers), also love whatever is dramatic: sudden breakthroughs, “Road-to-Damascus” conversions, complete changes of lifestyle. In reality, such events are extremely rare and often don‚Äôt last for much longer than it takes to write about them. True and lasting changes are nearly always made up of many small, unspectacular steps, repeated again and again.
Don’t worry if you haven’t yet made that elusive personal breakthrough or totally overhauled your lifestyle choices. As long as you’re moving steadily in the right direction, you’re doing better than most people.
If you’re tempted to sacrifice some part of your life to get what you think that you want, make sure that what you get isn’t worth less than the value of what you sacrificed.
All the cats I have had have been totally single-minded. All they ever focused on was their comfort: warmth, food, a soft place to sleep. This may be somewhat extreme for human life, but the principle is sound: don’t give up the basics until you’re sure that what you may win as a result is truly worth it.
People are easily tempted into giving up something — relationships, family life, personal interests, large tracts of time, even their health — as the ‚Äúprice‚Äù for gaining some longed-for goal, whether that’s status, being top dog, getting a promotion and a fancy job title, pocketing a fat share-option package, or having others defer to them. There‚Äôs nothing necessarily wrong in doing any of this, just so long as the benefits — when and if they come — are worth more than whatever you gave up to get them.
Sadly, human beings tend to overestimate the value of things in the future — influenced by a combination of desire and rose-tinted spectacles — and under-estimate the value of what they have already. Make sure that your calculations of relative values are sound. Usually, there‚Äôs no going back. What you sacrifice is gone for good.
Technorati Tags: easy recipes for beating stress, conservation of energy, how to cope with increasingly stressful lives, take the long view, Sleeping on decisions, small, unspectacular steps, repeated again and again,
Photo credit: Danielo
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