You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy!
Trying to guess the future.
Life is a craps table and you’ve got the bones in your hand. You blow on them and let them dance over the felt.
Will you throw a seven coming out: winner winner chicken dinner?
Or will you throw snake eyes and the house takes it all?
It’s all a crap shoot right? Bet big Win Big they say!
I’m sitting here on a Saturday morning watching the cat on his perch. The sun is low in the sky and the nearby wood line is bathed in a brilliant orange hue. The cat is calm and relaxed. His eyes blink and every so often his whiskers twitch.
He stares at the lawn and the wood line beyond. There are bugs on the window sill and he follows them with curiosity. I think he is imagining he is a jungle cat perched on a tree ready to pounce?
Then he yawns. The bugs are boring. No sport in killing bugs, he thinks.
With a slight move of his regal head, he looks to the lawn and spots bunnies nibbling on grass.
His attention is more serious now as his muscles quiver under his fur. His rear claws dig into the perch as if he is going to spring from the carpeted cat stand. He adjusts himself, never taking his eye off his prey. But he is mindful of the window pane that creates an invisible barrier between what he wants and what he can achieve.
The hunt is unattainable. The dance on the perch merely an exercise, allowing a million years of predatory DNA to fill his thoughts.
After a few more muscle twitches, the reality of his existence consumes the moment and he relaxes.
He lays his head down on the cool sheepskin rug and his eyes close.
I see his face twitch as his kitty dreams take him to a lush field of tall grass with lots of prey to chase.
I wonder if LIFE is like this moment.
I sit here 5 feet from the cat, from his perch, from his window pane on the world. I stare at the same tree line and the same blue sky. I don’t see bunnies but I do see a field of opportunity.
What’s beyond the horizon I wonder? Which of my dreams exist over that rise in the trees?
Life is crazy. You have to stay after it, believing that your purpose is out there, beyond the tree line, at the base of the blue sky. If you lose that vision, then you lose hope and depression takes hold.
You could curl up on the couch and pull your covers up to your chin. You could stare aimlessly at the USA network and its incessant array of non stop drama. You could easily disappear into a mindless oblivion created by Hollywood and brought directly to your brain courtesy of DIRECTV.
But this existence is for losers. It’s a waste of time.
My house cat has the right idea. Though he will never leave his perch today, though he will never feel the moist dew of the grass in his paws, he has all ready dreamed that he is a tiger, that he has taken down his prey and now he is relaxing in the shade of a tall tree.
Life is about dreaming. It’s about twitching on the perch of possibility and preparing to strike when reality, like a wounded wildebeest, meanders by.
If you are the cat, waiting, visualizing, hunting for opportunity, pouncing on your future is a simple task. It’s the execution of being prepared.
But if you are watching the USA network in the dark with the covers pulled up to your chin; Opportunity walks by you like a 4th of July parade that you never heard because you are all ready lost.
So my friends. Do you want to be the jungle cat? Or the loser under the covers? It’s your choice.
Would you rather roll a seven coming out or snake eyes with your tail between your legs.
And that is crazy.