On Flies

I’ve been learning another lesson from my dog Sadie.  Lately we’ve been having a problem with flies in the house.  Not a huge number of flies but one or two here and there.  Sadie is greatly disturbed by flies.  I watch her trying to catch them and mostly failing, trying to hide from them by crawling under my desk when I’m working, pawing me to deal with the fly and when that fails giving up and leaving the room they are in. 

The other day I was in the kitchen cooking and normally she is right there hoping for something to fall.  I was wondering where she was and I called her.  She came into the kitchen for a second–saw one fly and hightailed it back for the bedroom.  She let a fly keep her from her normal routine of being a mooch!  It made me laugh that she let such a small disturbance keep her from something she normally enjoys so much.  "It’s just a fly,"  I told her as she walked away.

Then I started thinking about all the times we give more importance than necessary to the small disturbances and annoyances in our lives.  How we let those "flies"  knock us off balance and get all agitated.  Whether it is something unexpected that messes with our schedule, an inconsiderate driver or 100 other things, we get to choose how big of importance we give that "fly."  We get more enjoyment out of life if we don’t let those things take too much of our attention. 

That may be what Sadie is doing when she leaves the room.  She may be saying to herself, "That fly disturbs me but I can’t do anything about it.  I’ll go enjoy my life in the bedroom!"  Not a bad move on her part!