Buy a dog

“I’m not exercising, I’m walking my dog.” __A former couch potato

The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden… ¹⁵ Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.  _Genesis 2:8, 17

*****

I walked off the stage in 1975 with a high school diploma, enjoyed a fun summer, and then went off to college where, unfortunately, “college” became a synonym for “youth camp.”

I did manage to learn a few things, but all-in-all my discipline muscles didn’t get a lot of exercise back in those days.

But it all came to a screeching halt when I married Sonja.

At first it was another wonderful youth camp adventure…being married. Sonja and I had a blast.

But pretty soon I discovered that a wife is not simply a roommate. Wives have…expectations.

I’ll not give you the gory details, but by taking responsibility for a wife, slowly, often painfully, but eventually I learned how to actually be a man…to take responsibility, to deny myself for the benefit of someone else, to manage myself better for the sake of someone else (things like not leaving my cloths lying around on the floor and not playing ball at the gym every night of the week and not spending my entire paycheck on myself).

And the end result is that my life has been so much better than if I’d become a grown “Peter Pan” who never really grew up.

Trust me, the best way to escape the boring blah-ness and all around dissatisfaction with life that so many are experiencing is not to find yet one more thing to do to entertain and pamper yourself. What I’d suggest is find a way to take on more responsibility.

There’s nothing more empowering and energizing than knowing there are people counting on you.

Of course doing this will require more of you. Responsibility is costly! But then life was never meant to be easy, but it was designed by our Designer to be enriching, fulfilling and purposeful and that can never happen without you taking responsibility of your own Garden of Eden.

So like the couch potato who could never discipline himself to get up off the couch and exercise, buy a dog and take him for a walk! It’s call taking responsibility and exercising it makes you a better person.

The ONE THING for today: If your life has plateaued and the zest and zing for life is gone…don’t wallow in despair…walk into someone’s life and ask, “How can I help?”