Training Yourself: What are you becoming?

The other morning I was out on a walk and I saw a woman coming out of her house with a little Husky puppy in her hands. She was carrying the puppy as though it had just started peeing and she wanted to make sure it didn't pee on her any more. I'm guessing she had caught the puppy in the act of peeing on her floor and, in order to train the dog, had carried him outside the instant he started peeing, so he would get the idea that he was supposed to start going outside.

I looked at the puppy dangling there in the woman's hands and I thought: "Today the puppy is 12 weeks old and having accidents on the floor. But in a couple weeks he'll know he's supposed to pee outside, on walks, and he'll be having fewer accidents. Then, before you know it, he'll be a full-grown dog, heading over to the door and scratching or whimpering whenever he has to be let out, even training his masters to pay attention to him."

It's all just a process. There he is, a pretty helpless, inexperienced pooch. All the woman is doing is helping the grown dog within to come out. He's meant to be a big, responsible, loyal, well-behaved dog, he's just going through the process. 

Now, human beings are not dogs. There is much more we can do, much more we can become, but we all have our training process. And no, I'm not talking about potty training, or learning to read, or learning our table manners, or how to find Indonesia on a map. I'm talking about your own, personal training process. You are both the Master and the puppy. What are you training yourself to become? 

Have you ever thought about this? If you're lucky you may live to be 70, 80, 90, 100 years old. Maybe you're that old already? But even if you only live one more day, who are you going to be tomorrow? Do you want to be frustrated, broke, angry, running behind the clock, looking back and wishing you'd done more, become more? Probably not. So, what do you want to become? Who do you want to become? And what are you doing to train that person, so he or she can come into existence?

Me, I have decided to more clearly refine what my inner "big dog" looks like, so I can start training my inner puppy. "A puppy?!" you may say. "But I'm ## years old!" It doesn't matter how old you are. Whether you realize it or not, you're changing every day. Your mind is changing, you're picking up new thoughts and ideas, seeing new things, getting into new situations, learning. So...what are you changing into? Are you picking up negative emotional baggage, getting more frustrated or jaded as the years go on? Or are you striving to be the person you thought you'd be at 40, or 52, or 87? Whatever you might believe: you do have a say in all this. You do not have to become a person shaped by whatever circumstances you were born into, or fell into, or accidentally created for yourself, and rolled into whatever shape you've allowed yourself to be rolled into over time.

Maybe it is time to look at yourself -- how ever old you are -- like the Husky puppy in her Master's arms. What kind of dog are you training that puppy to be? What are you becoming? After all... How ever much time you have, you're never going to have more time left than you have today.