Being spiritually schooled… by my dog
There's nothing like writing a book about spirituality and how not to be a dick, to bring you face to face with the 1001 ways you're still a massive dick in your daily life.
Case in point: I'm waiting for my lovely editor to send me her report on my first full draft, feeling pretty smug and anticipating that she'll basically tell me to just send it straight off to Amazon, since its literary perfection cannot be improved upon, when I find myself having a (small) altercation with a fellow dog walker whose dog was aggressive towards mine for no reason. Did he deserve telling (as I did) that his dog should be on a lead? Yes. Did I have to add that his dog was "a little shit"? No, not really.
Was the five minute rant to my partner about how I was completely and utterly OVER picking up sloppy dog poops, trudging round the same route 3 times a day with a huge geriatric creature whose sole mission in life at the moment seems to be to increase my osteopath bills by yanking me left and right, and never letting me go on holiday without abject anxiety she will die in the 5 nights I'm away from her understandable? Yes. Was it me at my spiritual colossus best? Hardly.
I think the universe conspires, quite cleverly, to remind you of your dickishness the second you stick your head above the parapet and suggest you might have something to say about how to live in this world. Or maybe it's just me, and the universe is really telling me to shitcan the whole idea and get a job at Lidl (I'm not suggesting that can't be a spiritual calling, dealing with the public with grace and kindness is absolutely the Lord's work).
Either way, life at the moment seems to be a series of reminders that, as the Yanks say, "you aint all that and a bag of potato chips". Some days I'm not even the broken Pringle at the bottom of the tube. But at least now I can admit this, extract my head from my arse and laugh at my dickishness. And next time remember and actually apply that excellent AA gatekeeping question: does this need saying by me now? And unless I get 3 very resounding yesses, STFU.
