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INSPIRATIONAL SHORT STORIES – Wisdom from Casper! by Sreedhar R Rao
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
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A collection of short stories centered around our pet Casper and the lessons I drew from him,
It is so strange that very small insignificant happenings in life have huge lessons hidden in them for one to learn, yet most of us overlook them and more so allow ourselves to be that much poorer in our learning process.
In this article, I am making an effort to share such small stories from which I learnt some lessons. My experiences relate to ‘Casper’, a cross breed dog, who was a part of our family for over 8 years physically, but continues to be with us in our memories.
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THE BARK!
From the time Casper came of age, I found that his barking also increased both in terms of intensity and frequency. Initially, for every bark of his we would run to see if anything was of concern. However, it always dawned that the bark was either for a frog in the garden or a stray dog standing outside the gate or some people just walking past the house. Due to our own inconveniences,Casper was every time pulled up for the “unnecessary bark”!
However, loyal as it alone can be, it continued its bark without allowing any pressure to come its way!
One day when my wife was at home, Casper started its bark and as the bark continued with increased intensity, my wife just looked through the window to see whether anything was wrong. But seeing nothing unusual she chose to ignore. However, Casper’s relentless bark continued till it reached a stage where my dear wife was moved to go out and see what the matter was.
As she tried to open the door she found Casper standing right in front of the door and vigorously trying to push her back. Not quite being able to understand, my wife tried to push herself out! But as she tried it her eyes immediately fell on a huge snake which had entered the parking area and facing Casper with all the venom it had!
My wife immediately called for help and of course the intruder was banished! Casper’s existence thereafter had added meaning to our lives!
My learning!
We build relationships with certain objectives in mind. We nurture them with a great deal of commitment, love and respect. It is an unsaid thing that the relationship can exist only if both sides contribute towards building and nurturing it. There is a great need for connectivity and response! Just imagine if Casper’s bark had been totally ignored! Just imagine if it had just allowed my wife to come out! The results would have been disastrous!
We strongly encourage “whistle blowing”! Please remember we expect “whistle blowing” happening only when there is something wrong! We have our set perceptions of right and wrong! However, we do not realize that the whistle you give to others will be used by them as and when they see “wrong” as per their perceptions! It is therefore necessary that whenever a whistle is blown we need to convince ourselves why it has been blown. Most often than not, the whistle would have been blown for reasons which do not fit into your perceptions about “wrong”! Doesn’t matter! We need to keep ourselves positive that we are fortunate that the whistle is being used and one day this would caution us when a real “wrong” happens! Please note that Casper is just an animal and has the advantage of not killing the animal instincts! We are human beings and tend to suffer as we cannot endure inconveniences and are quick to abandon people, relationships and feelings abruptly! The loyalty which a dog has is indeed absent in us!
Recognition and acknowledgement of one’s deeds go towards greater understanding of one’s value in a relationship! It helps in changing our perceptions! It helps in changing our behavior and attitudes! Casper’s value certainly got enhanced by his deeds! Our disposition, attitudes as well as behavior also changed positively! I reckon that when we build relationships we must be ready to recognize and acknowledge others contribution! This will only enhance the quality of the relationship!
Expression is the mode by which you convert the unseen elements in a relationship to something which can be seen, heard or felt! An unexpressed feeling will have no meaning!
The foot rug!
Casper had this strange habit that he did not enter the house beyond the foot rug laid out at the door! Stranger it is that as soon as he saw the door open it came and settled down quietly on the foot rug!
Initially, all of us at home were a bit annoyed by this! The reaction was to drive Casper out! But determined as he only could be, again the moment the door opened the foot rug was occupied! This continued, though foot rug after foot rug had come and gone!
During hot summers or cold winters we also witnessed that Casper would find a place in our small garden, clear the soil to make a comfortable trough and most of the time at the cost of some tender little plant! This indeed made our annoyance worse! And Casper would get the expressed anger showered on him in different ways!
However, one day it dawned on us that Casper was doing this for his own comfort! There was a need for him to protect himself from the extremities of the climate! We tried providing some good protection but still found that his need was best addressed by the foot rug or the small trough in the soil! The battle of wits still continued and looked like Casper won the battle! We were resigned to the fact that we needed to have more and more replacements for the foot rug and less and less plants in the garden!
My learning!
How different our homes as well as work place would have been if we ever cared to look at some basic needs of people!
In the case of human beings, the determination to do something that is not considered good by others is absent! We resign to accept others views as being the better view! But we live with our view suppressed deep within! One needs to also think that “truth is what one experiences, not what others see!”!
When basic needs are not recognized and addressed we can only expect people trying even destructive methods for finding some comfort! We often restrict ourselves to seeing the final effect and forget the cause for it! It is therefore essential that we develop our abilities to go deeper into the causal factors if we want to understand and provide long term solutions!
My lunch!
Considering that each one at home was occupied out of the house during the week days, Casper had his lunch when it was breakfast time for us! It was indeed a long wait for him for dinner to come! On holidays he had his lunch at the normal lunch time!
It was indeed so mechanical for us to have his lunch ready so much so that at times my dear wife expressed that it was also at the cost of forgetting her breakfast! So when the time came, Casper’s tail was wagging so enthusiastically as if he was having his life’s first lunch! Sometimes, but fortunately very rarely, we forgot to feed the lunch and you can imagine poor Casper spending the day with the pangs of hunger and anger as wel,l waiting for one of us to return and then realize that he was not served lunch! At times we did not realize this until dinner time and then when we realized the mistake we tried to cover this guilt by offering an extra serving! Casper indeed took it with both” hands” and easily forgot and forgave us for the mistake! Some days later he had started a mumbling bark at lunch time, perhaps trying to ensure that we did not forget giving him his lunch! It is indeed fascinating that this had worked well! It also provided us an opportunity not to commit the mistake again!
My learning!
Needs of people are important to them! In our relationship with people it is essential that we recognize their needs and after mutually agreeing we ensure that our commitments are carried out in time!
We need to learn from or mistakes! Human beings do not forget and forgive mistakes like Casper did, nor can they be goaded by offering something more to cover our guilt!
There is a need for each one of us to feel the pain of the other’s sufferings! If we can do this, I believe we will never commit the mistake! Each human being has her/his typical need! While we may feel anything about it, it is necessary that we realize that for that human being the need expressed is important! Our perceptions cannot change the needs! If we go by our perceptions, we will commit the mistakes!
To build an understanding we also need to understand that we need to build in systems which will take care of any possible failures! Like Casper did by inventing a different bark!
There are many lessons to be learned from Wisdom from Casper. I thoroughly enjoyed reading these short stories so much that I recommend that Sreedhar create a blog or book to share these great words of wisdom. I especially loved the sentence, "We are human beings and tend to suffer as we cannot endure inconveniences and are quick to abandon people, relationships and feelings abruptly! The loyalty which a dog has is indeed absent in us!" So true and such a inspirational message.
A pet's love is unconditional and the examples given at so true. As a pet owner I can certainly relate to these heartfelt stories.
Reviewed by Malavika Rao
10/1/2017
Thank you for putting our time with Casper in such a beautiful perspective! Your piece brought back a few of the many memorable moments we had with him. I look forward to read more from you.
He Keeps Me is a devotional journey of revelation and insight birthed out of prayer.Searching the Word of God revealed the many ways that He has kept me and continues to keep me. Each day is an opportunity to recognize that God is mindful of you, eve
