How My Cat Banishes Enemies From His Life

We can learn a lot from a cat.

My cats often illuminate my thoughts. Or maybe my cats are magical creatures who put the thoughts in my head.

Ok, I just watched my cats for a moment, thinking about that. No, they don’t put magical thoughts in my head. That’s too much work with too little reward.

What they do is live their normal cat lives. I watch. Sometimes as I watch, it causes ideas to crystallize. Then I either have a life lesson, a topic to write about, or both.

I spent five minutes last night watching my cat paw, stare, and paw some more. I got out of my bubble bath last night and wrapped a towel around myself. I turned around and noticed Xander. The expert Medium feline advice columnist had jumped down from the back of the tub. He was pawing at something.

The something seemed to be at the point my small bathroom rug and the bottom of my bathroom vanity cabinet met. I watched as Xander pawed at it and then stepped back. After a moment he pawed some more.

At one point Xander turned his head and watched me watching him. Then he went back to pawing. I assumed there was a small bug involved.

Anya stepped into the room. She didn’t walk over to Xander or the rug. She is our hunter, but nothing was setting off her spidey sense. After a glance from the doorway, she sat back and licked a paw.

Hmmm. I finally stepped up and flipped a corner of the rug back. I didn’t see anything. Xander looked at me. I looked at Xander. I put the rug back.

Xander resumed his pattern of pawing, pausing to look, then pawing some more. I looked at Anya. Anya looked at me, then resumed licking areas best unmentioned. We were in the bathroom. I couldn’t complain if she had a little grooming to do.

I must have stepped closer to Anya during our exchange of glances. I stepped back, looking at Xander and the curious pawing action. That’s when I saw it.

Xander wasn’t pawing at a bug. Xander was pawing at the shadow I cast. As I shifted position, the shadow moved. Xander was pawing at my other self!

The not-always-seen self. The self that grows and contracts, depending on the position of the light source. The self Peter Pan madly chased into the Darling’s nursery.

The next time your cat takes advice from Xander, tell them everyone chases imaginary foes. For that matter, remember the lesson yourself.

How often do we imagine we are in competition with others? Does the other person even know we are comparing ourselves to them?

The bake sale. Does the woman with those fabulous chocolate chip cookies worry? Are they good enough? Are they better than yours?

Does she realize you threw your first batch of brownies away? That you stayed up late baking another batch? The ones currently displayed next to her plate of perfection? That you are now second guessing the amount of vanilla you added?

What about the man sitting next to you at the quarterly management meeting? Does he know you hope your presentation crushes his? Does he even compare his work to yours? Does he?

As you make the second and third edit of your story, trying to make it the very best it can be, are you worried? Is it as good as other pieces? After it is polished and as shiny as you can make it, do you still hesitate to hit “Ready to Publish?”

After you finally pull the trigger and your writing is uploaded and ready to read, do you still worry? Is it good enough? Should you have chosen another photograph for the top?

Once you move on to read other writer’s stories, do you find yourself jealous? Are you thinking, “That writer has all the luck!” They don’t have more talent than you do but it all comes so easy.

Does it progress to thinking the other writer doesn’t deserve the claps and reads they get? Why aren’t those claps and reads yours? Why are they writing about that topic, anyway?

It is just so unfair.

Do you then withhold your claps? Start to leave negative comments? Talk crap about them on social media?

Leave bad reviews on that book they have on Amazon? Not because the book is bad. You didn’t even read the whole thing.

It is just so unfair. You don’t have the readers, you don’t have the claps, you don’t have a book on Amazon. Why do they?

Envy is a tiny little speck under a bathroom rug. It is a shadow you chase but never catch.

It would be easy, if you saw yourself in this unhealthy spiral, to step back and stop before it got so far. Envy is sneakier than that. Envy is a tiny little speck under a bathroom rug. It is a shadow you chase but never catch.

Envy hides in plain sight. It is set off by your own anxiety. As you scratch and rub at that speck of discomfort, it grows.

It begins to color your thinking and you direct it outside of yourself. You direct it at targets who are not responsible for your own irritation and pain. Your anxiety and fears.

It would be easier if we all watched our cats paw at the shadow and realized, “That is me. My anxiety is a shadow. My envy is that shadow growing bigger, as I give it more attention. The other person has nothing to do with any of it.”

Xander figured it out after a while. He let the shadow go and followed us out of the bathroom.

Let’s all be like Xander. Let’s walk away from the shadow and enjoy the rest of our lives.

Excuse me. I’m going to go read a bunch of stuff on Medium and clap as if my life depended on it.

If you liked this, you may like: