My daughter’s family has a rescue dog named Eva. She is a kind, gentle, loving, and a very happy dog.
It would seem that she must have had an easy and happy puppy-hood, but that wasn’t the case at all. In fact, it was completely the opposite. It was hard, mean, and by all appearances, cold and lonely.
However, instead of dwelling on her past, she goes for the goodness.
This is why they chose her; she was going for the goodness in spite of all the reasons why she could choose to be angry and bitter instead. As she has lived with her new family, she has increased her goodness ration proportionality.
I understand that many rescue dogs are like Eva. They go for the goodness with all of their being.
We don’t appear to be as good as Eva is at going for the goodness. Instead, we allow our past to direct our present, which is then the architect of our future.
Even though we have so many more opportunities and abilities to choose goodness than a dog does, we don’t choose it. We dwell in past hurts, both true, and perceived.
To add to the pain, we allow blame – not just to others – but also to ourselves, to fester and grow.
Remaining in this victim viewpoint in any degree leaves us in the same situation that we are trying to forget, or from which we wait to be rescued. However, unlike a dog that has to hope and wait for rescue, we can rescue our own lives and stop waiting for someone else to do it.
In fact, we must rescue our own lives, and not wait for another to do so, because no one else can. No one can “fix” us because it is our own hanging onto a past picture of lack of love that must be resolved if we want to be more like Eva – kind, gentle, loving, and happy.
The question is how to do this?
