Yesterday, I took both Charlie and Sallie to the vet for some routine check up stuff, including getting their license, a shot each and heart worm testing. Charlie is the German Shepherd and Sallie is the lab mix. While they are two large dogs (75 and 110 pounds) they are generally easy to handle together — except when they go to the vet.
Sallie gets all excited about meeting new people and exploring new rooms she has never been in. She sees the visit to the vet as an opportunity to expand her world and maybe get a new treat, make a new friend, etc. Her ears dance and she quite literally smiles.
Charlie, on the other hand, thinks no good could possibly come from going anywhere new. He is convinced that the vet is a really bad place and all sorts of harm will befall him and Sallie. He wants out as soon as we walk into the place. For him, all the smells are ghosts of dogs who have somehow met their fate at the hands of these labcoats and he just wants none of this.
The reality is, of course, somewhere in the middle. The vet takes each back to a little room where they get a shot that probably hurts a little but they get a tasty treat at the end. In the end, not much bad stuff happened but then, not much good stuff happened either. Sallie is still happy and excited at the end and Charlie is still nervous and scared. Each will probably be that way the next time we visit the vet. Maybe it will level off a bit for each; they are only four years-old.
That brings me to my 2012.
At times, I feel like Sallie and others, Charlie. The newness of the year and the potential of some project I am working on gets me giddy with excitement. And then I might take a phone call that has me crashing down to earth, clawing me into maintenance mode for a project I had long since thought had been put to bed.
This economy and the negativity of the primaries gets into my head some days as well. I can feel it in the aurora of people I talk to throughout the day. It seems there is a belief that more profit can be made with hate and fear than with hope and change.
For the most part, I am going to try to be more like Sallie than Charlie, even though there is a slight danger I may sometimes walk around with a goofy grin on my face.
The risk is probably worth taking.
This blog post is part of a blog-off series with a group of bloggers from different professions and world views, each exploring a theme from his/her world view. This was about exploring the theme, what are you looking forward to int he new year? To explore how others handled the theme, check them out below. I will add links as they publish.
