We love the dog.
Leia is the only other girl in the house, an 8-year-old Labrador who has witnessed almost the entire evolution of our relationship. She loves walks on the mountain with daddy, cuddling with the boys, snoring at our feet while we watch Netflix, act as the first line of food waste mop-up in the kitchen for messy eating… but her favourite favourite thing, arguably, is going to the beach. Chasing and swimming after a tennis ball on land and sea, and coming home full of sand, wet, exhausted and happy… that is probably no 1 in the dog needs stack. Caroline often takes her for a morning playtime in Camps Bay, which is a win-win. Mommy gets to do a bit of cold water immersion and set the day up right, and the hound gets beautiful playtime.
A weekday early morning is something different from a Saturday afternoon in the middle of summer. The beach is a lot more crowded, parking is tricky, and the dog is technically not allowed after 9 am. So we generally don’t do it, except this last weekend, we were invited to a secret sunset session.
Now for those of you who don’t know this concept: It is a non-verbal connection. A bunch of people get together, put on earphones with a wonderful soundtrack, and then are led by the facilitator in a number of dance moves that help you to let go of your inhibitions, connect with strangers through movement, eye contact and just playfulness. It’s a great construct, and we were excited to take the kids and see how it goes. We also decided to take Leia, because hey. It’s the beach. It’s her thing. It’s our thing. We never go without her, right?
They chose a good spot, and the music was spot on. The other people there, mostly families, were like us at different levels of engagement depending on their offspring. In our case, AJ was in, but Matie preferred to play in the waves. Caroline found herself listening to the music but not really participating in the construct as she was throwing the ball for the dog and supervising the kids, and I kind of bounced in between.
When the hour-long dance-off was done, and after snacks and chats, we packed up and went home. We agreed that it was a wonderful experience, and for all the usual reasons, we like the beach. We also agreed that we probably missed out on the full value of the Secret Sunset construct because our attention was diverted. But we had a happy dog, tired happy kids, and we were contented with our outcomes.
Next time, though, we’ll leave the dog.
I’d rather make it up to her than get confused about what we’re there to do. It’s kind of like the hiring process, I suppose. You can be clear on what you’re looking for, but then you get derailed by other qualities in the individual that seem attractive but don’t really serve the goal. Being clear on what experience you need, then aligning your resources and expectations accordingly… and finally, executing that goal, without being distracted… that’s where the gold sits. And as part of that, you need to constantly fight your legacy constructs, because they might derail you too (“It’s the beach. We take the dog. It’s a strong paradigm…”)
Leia is better served with our undivided attention, early in the morning when there’s no one else there. And we are better served by honouring the construct of the invitation, and allocating our attention and curating our environment accordingly.
PG’s PRO TIP:
I’m pretty sure I’ll still get confused about what I’m there to do in the years ahead, especially being an Enneagram 7. But ploughing through Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking Fast and Slow” has given me pause on examining my legacy constructs, checking my lazy reactive thinking and keeping on working the muscle of System 2 thinking, which is where the real magic happens. Give it a read. It’s heavy lifting, but worth it.
Comments