Nobody knows self-control like this creature. My cat, Soleil. She was two years old when my family adopted her from a shelter, and that was five years ago. She may be seven years old (yay, I can do math!), but she's still as frisky as a kitten, and vicious. My neighbor tells me stories about how he loves to watch her hunt mice. He giggles every time he talks about it. This is a seventy year-old man, folks. Giggling. And he says he hates cats.
Anyway, the area of self-improvement I have been putting the most energy into lately is self-control. It's not easy! Keeping all of the (usually unnecessary) things to myself that I would love to say out loud, not mentioning "I told you so" when someone doesn't take my advice, not starting or contributing to a pointless argument...these things, for me, require effort. So if I watch and learn from a cat who hates children, yet who does not bite or attack my two children when they get loud and stomp around or when they stuff her in a sleeping bag because they think she wants a ride, I can learn that sometimes elegance and composure is the best way to react to a situation. And I can also learn that sometimes you get tossed into a situation you don't love, but you should concentrate on how to get out of it rather than reacting with emotions and not seeing clearly through it.
Today was not a great day for me, and at one point I went to my cat and buried my face in her belly fur, which she also hates. And she patiently let me do it, because I think she could tell I needed to. I really hope to master self-control as she has. And I really hope someday she doesn't snap and bite out my jugular while I sleep, because we both know she can.
