The greyhound mindset
"Don’t worry, be happy…"
In every life, we have some trouble. But when you worry you make it double. Don’t worry, be happy. Don’t worry, be happy now. (Bobby McFerrin)
Tula got tired of repeatedly singing this classic song one spring morning in 2014. We went out to do her first pee of the day, our usual “touch and go” so her bladder wouldn’t have to wait until I finished breakfast and took a shower… We did it like this every morning for years, but that one backfired…
We put her collar on, her leash on, and my princess shoes on, and when I closed the door harder than ever (Murphy’s law at its best), I realised I had left the key inside…
Although I wasn’t born with a computer under my arm (I confess I discovered email when I was already in college), I belong to the “Undo” generation.
“Undo” is that ultra-mega-hyper-really-useful tool that all the apps of our lives have. Our unconscious install it in our mental system as if it were possible to apply to our daily physical tasks…
Can you imagine how amazing it would be to do “Undo” on every mistake we make? Well, that’s what I thought when I was literally out of the house and unable to get back in again.
It was 10 minutes to 8 in the morning, and I was banging my head against the unbreakable door. No, I wasn’t banging my head to try to open it. I was doing it to acoustically accompany the question that kept repeating: “How could I be so stupid? How could I be so stupid?”
While banging my head against the reinforced door, Tula looked at me impassively, attentive but relaxed. I remember imagining her trying to send me her best energy to solve the problem. But it wasn’t enough to open the door.
The notion of “problem” does not exist in the world of relaxed souls, to which Tula (as a Greyhound) and dogs belong. Instead of problems, in their world, there are only opportunities.
And that was what Tula saw that day: an opportunity. So when I decided to stop beating myself up, there she was, ready to go for a long walk instead of the planned quick exit, without thinking about keys and how we would get back into our house. She knew that would happen sooner or later!!! Tula thought: “Great, we can’t go into the house, so now we can go out early, take a long walk, and there will still be time to eat breakfast before my stomach starts to rumble”. Pure opportunity in the eyes of a wise, chic greyhound.
Tula didn’t bat an eyelid as we entered a bar to ask where to find a locksmith before 8 a.m. Nor did the hair on her neck stand up when the locksmith—15’ after following the barman’s advice—told me that his partner only arrived after 8:30.
I know 45’ seems like a short time seen from your couch, where you’ll now be comfortably reading our adventure. But remember that I hadn’t had breakfast and took a shower. Besides, I didn’t have my mobile phone to remain contactable when the locksmith, who didn’t know where our house was, arrived. So we had to stay by the entrance the whole time.
To make the situation worse, Tula had gone out without her pyjamas (and the weather was still cold). The only thing that messed her up was being out without her portable mat (the one she used in the summer evenings on bar terraces, without which she never accepted to sit or lie down when we were out of the house, even if the drinks time lasted three hours)
To keep the story short, the locksmith only showed up four hours later. Until that moment, Tula and I heated each stone that paved our street. Stoic and glamorous as always, she remained standing the whole time, wondering why we weren’t going to sunbathe in a place with a better view and with her portable mat.
Four hours passed until we returned to the house… Four hours in which I cried all my tears for my stupid mistake. In anticipation of the locksmith’s visit, I thought again and again how much the “opportunity” to go back home would cost. I poisoned myself, thinking whether the door would open easily or whether the lock barrel would have to be broken and replaced with a new one…
During those hours, I lived in the past and the future, but I hardly stopped to feel the present.
Yet, there we were, Tula and I, sunbathing in a way we wouldn’t have taken otherwise.
While she tried to find a comfortable position without “humiliating” herself by lying down on the pavement, I didn’t allow myself to enjoy the comical nature of each of her attempts to improvise a bed. I blocked myself and didn’t thank all the times she tried to console me and dry my tears with her snout. I was so intent on suffering and tormenting myself over what had happened that I think I even aged a couple of years in those four hours (as if I needed to age more at this stage of my life!)
On the other hand, Tula just waited for the locksmith to arrive and, as the good self-taught girl that she was, she looked for ways to entertain herself until the blessed gentleman appeared… Pure greyhound in action: in the face of difficulties, see only opportunities…
"In every life, we have some trouble. But when you worry you make it double. Don’t worry, be happy. Don’t worry, be happy now.
That’s right, Mr. Bobby McFerrin.
When we worry, we become negative and only attract more negative things. So many times, I was afraid of leaving the house and forgetting my keys, and in the end, it happened to me. It was my fears that attracted the blessed “opportunity.”
That’s why we don’t have to PREoccupy ourselves, which means getting worried before it’s necessary; we can be happy now. That’s what dogs, and greyhounds in particular, do...
When greyhounds are in a forgotten cage, starving, cold, panicked, and in pain, they don’t try to calculate how many years they will have to spend there. They limit themselves to accepting the situation and surrendering to it. Because that is the most effective method of feeling that the nightmare passes more quickly.
Greyhounds don’t see the cage as a problem but as the opportunity to know the contrast between the life of a slave and the life of a king, which is the one they deserve. Living the experience of the hideout allows greyhounds, later on, to enjoy and value the sofa of their rescuer-rescued human much more.
I could give more examples, but I think this is enough to illustrate how a greyhound sees opportunities instead of problems wherever they go… The greyhound’s wisdom is genuinely admirable, isn’t it?
When people heard the details of Tula’s queenly life, many would say, “How I would like to be your dog!”
But I would rather be a greyhound, to live life to the full as they do, to take obstacles as opportunities to grow and not as a consequence of a life-being-against-me mindset. That way, I could live the present as it is: “a gift…”
Instead, in those days, I lived buried in the past. I used to live anticipating a future that turned out to be less terrible than I imagined. After all, the drama of that day cost only €20 (a lot of money, but a joke compared to the €100 I had imagined).
Upon entering the house, I remember Tula dove into the sofa as if nothing had happened, barely sighing and saying, “Cool! After three hours of sunbathing, we returned home! When are you going to feed me?” On the other hand, I only managed to get over the shock a day later. What a difference!!!
Thank you, Bobby McFerrin, for writing this song with the “greyhound mindset”…
Because when you worry, your face will frown.
And that will bring everybody down.
Don’t worry, be happy.
(Don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t do it.
Be happy. Put a smile on your face.
Don’t bring everybody down.
Don’t worry. It will soon pass, whatever it is.
Don’t worry, be happy.
I’m not worried, I’m happy…).
Do you have any similar experience?
What was your attitude?
What did you learn?