What a Cat made me Realize

Last week, a friend of mine asked me to take care of her cat while she was away for vacation time with family. I have been thinking of getting a pet of my own for quite some time now but have been hesitant due to various life demands that I feel like I'm going to be neglecting the poor thing, so I plan not to get one until things start to settle and I have ample time. But still, I agreed to taking care of the cat to see how well I can manage, thinking that it was only going to be for the weekend since my friend said, "over the weekend", I didn't think she meant, "over the long weekend". What went on during the 6 days I spent with the cat was surprising...

I have always been a dog person and I really didn't know about how cats like to operate. I didn't know that they only needed 3 hours of sleep for them to be active again, to which I have woken up to for the first couple nights. I didn't know that they didn't have much appetite compared to dogs, to which I wasted a lot of cat food. I didn't know they loved to drop things, to which I was always annoyed and worried about things they may break. I didn't know they weren't much of a listener as compared to dogs and would disturb me during those times that I needed to focus on working. The only good thing was that it was well-trained for potty and I didn't need to clean up its mess that much. And oh yes, let's not forget the panic I felt when it sounded like it was going to vomit while on my bed! It turned out to be a normal thing due to hairball.

Despite of these, I slowly learned to love the cat, accept its flaws and learned to live with it for a few days. I also learned that although I knew I was capable enough to take care of it,  I still wasn't ready for that big responsibility of taking care of another life. That it got some of my focus away from what I needed to do.

All these doesn't mean that I cared less about the cat, it just means that there are bigger things in life that I needed to pay attention to that was already present in my life. I asked myself, would owning a pet right now contribute to what I'm trying to accomplish at the moment? The answer was an obvious no. This should be the question we should always ask ourselves before making a decision- "Would this decision contribute to my goals?" This is the million dollar question that a lot of people forget to ask themselves. We actually encounter mundane stuff everyday that directly impacts our growth but we forget to ask ourselves this question. This might just be the single ingredient that we need to gain that clarity and focus we've been trying to get from inspiration. Just remember this quote from Thomas Alva Edison...

Success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.

What about you? Have you had some mundane ground-breaking experiences about self-discovery lately? I'll be glad to hear your story!

Keep growing guys!