PET APPRECIATION POST

how great are pets, am i right?! seriously though, i think animals and pets are an extremely underrated form of a coping mechanism. data from the american crisis text line indicates that pets are the second highest support system during covid-19; after friends, and before family and significant others.

that’s pretty big. and it’s pretty understandable. for me, my cats have been my rocks over the years. they’ve been there every time i’ve been struggling emotionally and they’ve been there in a way we sometimes wish people were there for us - unconditionally.

i live alone. so at the start of covid when we were self-isolating, i was worried. how was i going to get this social connection that we as humans so desperately need? the reality was, i wasn’t. at least not with other humans. but i got that connection, it was just in the form of my feline children.

people often questioned why i wouldn’t just leave my cats in the US when i moved back to australia. and i asked them, would they ever leave their children in another country? because in essence, these cats are my children. they’re involved in most significant decisions i make in my life. and i understand at times that can be limiting, but i also know the joy i’ve received from them is irreplaceable.

simba helped save my life back in 2015 when i was struggling with suicide. he was the one thing i would always look forward to seeing. especially when he would run from streets away just to greet me at the door. he was the light in a world of darkness.

not only do pets offer emotional support in the form of non-judgemental reactions and physical affection, but they also remind us to be present. they remind us there are things bigger than ourselves in this world. they give us responsibility. purpose. and all of that; someone to love, something to do, something to look forward to, are the ingredients for happiness. all of which my cats, simba and bailey, successfully supply.

POLITICS

i try to stay away from commenting on politics, not because i don’t have an opinion, but because i don’t have all the facts.

and the reality is, we will never have all the facts. the media is presenting what sells. and we as a consumer buy what feeds our ego. but the news has become nothing more than a confirmation of our biases, not an expansion of our minds.

rarely do people ever seek the opposing side; they seek the information that validates their beliefs. but arguments can and will always be made for both sides of the story. and the reality? reality will never be known. because there’s three sides to everyone story: yours, theirs, and the truth.

whenever something happens in the world, i find it entertaining to see how quickly people choose one side over the other as though they are experts on the events. experts on the intentions of the parties involved. experts on interpreting biased, misleading information. all one’s opinion does is highlight their own biases, their own prejudices, and their own narrow-mindedness.

what if instead of choosing a side to argue, the side that supports our beliefs and biases, we tried to understand the alternate perspective. we tried to understand how or why an event like that could have happened. what if instead of making it personal, we make it about solving the problem. what if we took the emotion out and considered both sides, no matter how confronting.

is this difficult? absolutely. why? because it’s not convenient. it requires effort. effort to not judge. effort to not jump to conclusions. effort to educate. and it sometimes requires effort to hold up a mirror for introspection. but what it requires most? empathy. and this world could sure use a lot more of that.

The stories we tell ourselves

On the 9th of June I had surgery on my knee to repair a torn lateral meniscus and to remove my screw from the previous surgery. A few weeks prior to surgery, I asked the surgeon if he would repair my acl, to which he said, “No, because your knee doesn’t feel that unstable.” After surgery the surgeon informed me that I actually had a “fully intact acl.” Wait, what? How? I quickly prodded the surgeon…so…what does that mean? Does that mean it was never torn? Or has it just magically healed? The surgeon said, “It’s likely it was partially torn, and it has since then completely healed.”

So many thoughts. So many questions. I was adamant I had completely ruptured my acl. I heard the “pop”. I knew what that pop meant. I had four different professionals all confirm what I thought I knew. I had an MRI that confirmed a complete rupture. So how could it be that it wasn’t completely torn? How do you explain that “pop”? What would have happened if I had a reconstruction back in September? What would they have found? More importantly though, why do I even care?

Our past is a funny thing. We attach ourselves and our identities to the stories we tell both ourselves and others. Back in September I wrote heartbreaking posts about the confronting reality that I had torn my acl again, for the third time. I wrote about my difficulty accepting this reality, about the difficulty accepting that my dream as a professional player was that much more unattainable. But then I wrote about defying the odds. I wrote about playing without an acl. I wrote about hope. About challenging the status quo. I thought I was accomplishing something rare, something I was told wouldn’t be possible. And now, what if all of that was a lie? What if, none of that happened? What if my acl was never ruptured? What if everything that I’ve been telling myself for the past 9 months was based on something, on a fact, that was never a fact but a misdiagnosis? Does this make me a fraud for what I’ve written and spoken about? Does this make what I thought I achieved, less remarkable? Does it even matter?

And the answer, I believe, is no. What I wrote about was written from the knowledge I had. Knowledge I had absolutely no reason to question nor distrust. My reactions and subsequent posts were based on the emotions I experienced. They were real. Raw. And heartbreaking. Why then, do I care about this new information? Why does it have to change anything? And why am I not ecstatic that I have an acl? Because of the attachment to my story. I had internalised this adversity as being who I was. I was someone who had torn their acl three times. But now, who am I? Am I someone who has torn their acl three times or only twice? And again I question, does it even matter?

Our past doesn’t define who we are. Nor does what has happened in our lives. Sure, our past might influence the direction in which we take, but we are not defined by those events. What defines us is who we are today and how we choose to live our lives. We’re defined by the values that guide us. By the friends that surround us. By the way we treat others. Not by the story we tell.

I used to think that the most important thing when getting to know someone was getting to know everything about them. Getting to know their past. Their pain. Their trauma. And I remember being challenged in Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth and by a dear mentor of mine who stated that our past does not define who we are. There is often no need to talk about it other than to feed the pain body, to feed our ego. For years I struggled with this concept. My entire philosophy was based on this idea of getting to know where someone came from. Because I believed that that was the best way to understand who they were. But I was wrong. Their past isn’t who they are. Nor is their pain. Has it influenced them? Undoubtedly so. But it isn’t them. They are more than their past, than their pain, than their story. I now find I have no need to delve into the depths of someone’s history to learn who they are, instead, I can gauge who they are by the way in which they conduct themselves. By the way they speak to others. Their priorities. Their interests. Their values. And by who they choose to surround themselves with.

Although our adversities often shape our perspective and the path we are now on, they are not the essence of our identity. Prior to my trip to Hamilton Island earlier in the year, I found that I had an incessant need to share my story with others. To share my pain. My heartbreak. It’s as though I was seeking attention, validation, sympathy – I wanted people to know why I was the way I was. But I realise now, that information is irrelevant. Instead of focusing on my past, on my origin story, I focus instead on the future. On what I can create. On who I want to become. On the influence I want to have. Is all of that influenced by my past? Absolutely. But it’s not the core of who I am.

What happened in September was a blessing. I needed that to happen to relinquish the attachment I had to achieving my dream. A dream that was never going to truly fulfil the depths of my desires, but rather, only feed my ego. Without thinking I tore my acl again, perhaps I would still be filled with anger and bitterness about being overlooked. Perhaps I would still be clinging on to a slither of hope. Perhaps I would still be defining myself by my past and by my pain.

But September 6th did happen. And because it did, it has allowed me to get to the place I’m at today. A place of freedom. A place of peace. And a place of vision. Instead of clenching onto my origin story, my mind has now shifted and expanded to the infinite nature of the future. A future in which my past has influenced, but it does not control. A future in which I am proactively creating. A future in which I am me, without explanation. So remember, you are more than the stories you tell yourself. You are more than what has happened to you. You are the person evolving within. You are you. A you that is an infinitely complex being far beyond the realms of conventional definitions.