Second Thoughts on How to Be As Terrific As Your Dog Thinks You Are - Softcover

Mort Crim is a journalist, author, lecturer and motivational speaker. He was a network journalist for over thirty-five years, working as a correspondent with ABC, New York and as a senior editor and anchor for WDIV-TV, Detroit. Now, he is the host of the award-winning radio program Second Thoughts, currently heard on more than eight hundred stations nationwide. Mort is the author of several books, including Second Thoughts: Upbeat Thoughts for Beat-Up Americans and Good News for a Change!: Touching Your Heart, Increasing Your Hope.

Chapter Three

Even Short Tails
Can Wag

ôThe worst bankrupt in the world is the man
who has lost his enthusiasm.ö
ù H.W. Arnold

öNo animal should ever jump up on the
dining room furniture unless absolutely
certain that he can hold his own in the
conversation.
ùFran Lebowitz

Golum and Bogey never had a bad day.

Bad moments, yesùas when scolded for misbehaving, or getting a shot from the vet. But as soon as the unpleasant event was over, their old vim and vigor quickly returned.

When some event didn't suit them, these two simply dealt with it and moved on. They never moped or slunk away to pout. Even as age and arthritis began taking a toll in their later years, these happy dogs refused to let stiffness and pain rob them of their zest.

Golum and Bogey loved lifeùand lived lifeùenthusiastically. Theirs was a joy that came from their hearts. But it manifested itself most dramatically in their butts.

At the slightest hint of fun&3151the rattle of a leash, the opening of foodùboth dogs immediately went into a tailspin.

Bogey, who still had a tail, would start a rapid back and forth motion like a windshield wiper. But Golum, whose tail had been bobbed in keeping with good Doberman grooming standards, merely rotated his.

However, as his excitement grew, he would twirl that stub so fast it appeared his hindquarters might, at any moment, become airborne. Golum didn't have as much appendage as Bogey had, but what he had he used with ebullience. Even a short tail can wag impressively when linked to a soul full of delight.

Their enthusiasm was contagious, and enthusiasm was something I badly needed to catch during those dreary and difficult months following Nicki's death. How could any creature be so happy? What was the secret of their great gusto? Surely, to be as terrific as they thought I was, I would need to rediscover the excitement I'd lost.

I fully understood that this would take time. Grief has its own calendar. But I also knew Golum and Bogey were on my side. I knew they would lead the way.

For dogs, enthusiasm seems to be built in. They don't have to think about it or work at it. Enthusiasm comes as part of the canine packageùas standard as barking and sleeping.

We humans, on the other hand, don't always find it so natural. After several years of wrestling with life, of encountering defeats and disappointments, of suffering losses, we may find our supply of enthusiasm so depleted we forget whether we ever had any.

Watching Golum and Bogey romp in our backyard one sunny, spring afternoon, I knew that, in time, I, too, would feel like playing again.

Nicki and I had shared an optimistic view of life. She had made it clear she didn't want that part of our marriage partnership to die with her.

"Honey, please don't grieve too long," she had said to me only a few days before her death. "I want you to build a new life. It's really important that you move on with your life."

The excruciating pain I felt in that moment made it difficult for me to really hear what she was saying. But now, watching those dogs frisking about among the early spring flowers, gave Nicki's admonition fresh meaning. What she had wanted for me was exactly what I would have wanted for her had I been the one to leave first.

What she had urged was that I never lose my enthusiasm for life. That I never allow tragedy or sadness to have the last word.

Faith in God, belief in the meaning and the goodness of life, were at the heart of her philosophy and had been since we'd met as childhood sweethearts. So I readily understood the full scope of what she was communicating with those few simple words, "I want you to build a new life."

There was no doubt in my mind that, in due course, I would rediscover a reason to live, that enthusiasm would be rekindled and hope renewed. What Nicki and I believedùwhat we had sharedùtranscended our physical presence together.

I had seen my mother rediscover joy after losing the most important person in her lifeùmy father. They'd loved each other deeply and exclusively for forty-four years, and we wondered how she would survive such a devastating loss. But Dad, like Nicki, had left a heritage of hope. Of faith. Of enthusiasm for life. A conviction that we were all created for a purpose and that death is not a dead end but a passage. Because Dad never lost his belief in the meaning, the goodness and the ultimate triumph of life, my mother was able to rebuild hers.

When Dad was dean of students at a small southern college, he once counseled a sophomore named Harold. One of Harold's professors had told Dad that the young man had ability but lacked enthusiasm. He was apathetic.

Harold appeared emotionless as he walked into Dad's office. He sat slouched in a chair as Dad tried to draw him out of his indifference and engage him in conversation. Harold responded to Dad with a blank stare.

"Harold," Dad said, "Your professor tells me you're apathetic." Still nothing.

"Harold, do you understand the word apathetic?"

Finally Harold responded, "No, and I couldn't care less."

Apathy is a crime against existence itself, and it's one we shouldn't tolerate indefinitely in ourselves.

Sure, life will deal cruel blows to all of us. There will be sadness. Failures. Disappointments. Keeping the flame of enthusiasm flickering at such times isn't easy. But it is essential. And it is possible.

How do we do it? For one thing, we have to allow healing to occur. When Bogey was about two years old, he cut his leg, and the gash was deep enough that we took him to the vet.

As the doctor finished taping on a bandage, he said, "The wound should heal within a week if you can keep him from chewing off the bandage and getting to his stitches.

That's the secret. How many of our wounds would heal if we'd only allow them to? Emotional wounds. Psychological hurts.

But like our little dog, we're instinctively driven to revisit the wound. To keep examining it. Ultimately, that slows the healing process and delays a return of enthusiasm.

I once visited an elderly relative who's husband had died five years earlier. She had left everything in his bedroom exactly as it was the day he died. The belt that he'd placed on a dresser was there, untouched, as were several other personal items.

The woman had turned the bedroom into a shrine. She had refused to let go of her pain, so her grief was as sharp as it had been five years earlier.

When their son was four, Rabbi Harold Kushner and his wife learned that the child had progeriaùthe disease that causes rapid aging. This meant the boy would lose all his hair and look like an old man before he reached puberty. At age fourteen, their son died.

It's difficult to imagine any greater grief than that which accompanies the loss of a child. But from that bitter experience, Rabbi Kushner was able later to write, "Pain does not last forever." Yes, pain will subside. Enthusiasm will reemerge if we allow it to happen.

In the final analysis, enthusiasm isn't a function of fate.

It's often an issue of time, but it's always a matter of choice:

When the U.S. Navy first launched its Polaris submarines, it was decided that each sub should have two complete crews. Each crew would alternate so that each got six months at sea, six months ashore.

When one of the veteran crewmen was asked how he liked the system, he replied, enthusiastically, "It's great. Whether you get along with your wife or whether you don't, you get six months of happiness every year.

That crewman had decided this arrangement would be a win-win no matter what.

If you seem a little short on enthusiasm today, try using what you've got. See how it multiplies.

You'll discover that even short tails can wag.

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(c)2000. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Second Thoughts: On: How to Be as Terrific as Your Dog Thinks You Are! by Mort Crim. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Publisher: HCI, 3201 SW 15th Street, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442.