It's Monday

It's Monday, isn't it? Today really feels like a Monday to me. I'm tired. The weekend and free time with my husband didn't last long enough, somehow.

We took our yellow lab swimming yesterday. I'm always surprised at what simple, mundane activities teach me. Here's what I mean.

At the reservoir there is a long dock in the water, and if you know anything about labrador retrievers, you know that they love to jump off docks into the water. They also love little kids and tennis balls, and not necessarily in that order.

As I was throwing tennis balls out into the reservoir and enjoying watching our dog jump off the end of the pier and aggressively retrieve those yellow floaters, a family with two small girls approached and walked out to the end of the dock and sat down; eager, it seemed, to watch our dog run by and launch himself off the dock in front of them.

I was sure that our dog would lose focus on retrieving the tennis ball and opt instead to share how wet he was with those two cute little girls, who were all dressed up in pretty dresses. But our lab stayed focused and time after time just ran right past them and broad-jumped off the end of the dock. The family enjoyed it immensely and asked me lots of questions about our dog.

Ok, so nice story, right? But here's what I learned from this silly little activity: a tiered approach to priorities is always a good thing. So many things clamor for equal attention in our lives, and knowing which ones are important, and in what order, is crucial to focused living. Imagine if our yellow lab had tried to stay focused on retrieving while being equally focused on getting to know those cute little girls. At the very least, he would not have been very successful in either venture, and at the very worst, he would have gotten hurt trying to jump off the dock and still be near the girls.

So maybe it's just me that learns little lessons through things like this. If so, I apologize for being a freak and wasting your time. However, if you also learn random lessons through small activities in life, I'd love to hear about it. What's one lesson you learned (or re-learned) last week?

Happy Monday.