Читать книгу My Dog, My Buddha - Kimberly Artley - Страница 12

4.

The importance of a mulligan.

A “mulligan” is a term widely used in golf to describe a “replay”. The golfer gets to take another shot without penalty.

In my mind, there’s no such thing as “failure” or “mistakes”; as these are gifts in disguise. “Teachable moments”. Opportunities to learn, grow, and begin again.

Of course, this depends greatly on the POV of the human and the lens through which he or she is viewing. We can view setbacks as exactly that, or choose a different perspective: acknowledging the lesson and readjusting our approach.

Dogs live in the moment and are always willing to rock a mulligan. In fact, it’s a confidence builder for them. Practice and repetition x 100. Doing something over and over again, getting better and better at it, eventually nailing it every time.

In a culture that encourages, celebrates, and pushes quick fixes, our level of patience has begun to deteriorate as our expectations have skyrocketed in terms of faster, bigger, better, and requiring little to no effort.

Dogs help us to keep it real, challenging us in ways only they can. Encouraging us to channel that lost art of patience and effort, as we work to create a symbiotic language and mutual understanding. To honor and respect the journey. The process of getting there.

If you’re working with your dog and his or her performance isn’t quite meeting your expectations, take a deep breath, flex your patience muscles, consider how you can help them understand you better through tweaking and adjusting your approach, and give the gift of the almighty mulligan (both to yourself and your pup).

After all… isn’t life but a string of mulligans?