I’m not sure if dogs are vulnerable to human maladies, but I think maybe my dog Winston has caught a bad case of personicus discontentus. I’m guessing he got it from watching too much T.V. After all, there’s nothing like a steady dose of pop culture to create a big whoppin’ case of discontentment, perhaps even in a dog.
As he lounges in front of the T.V., Winston sees a fellow dog romping on the beach with his master (who can now run thanks to the arthritis medicine being advertised) and he thinks, “Wow – I sure wish Mary Ann and Joe would take me to the beach to romp. I’d love to dig my paws into sand like that.”
Winston watches pampered pooches strutting their hairsprayed stuff on the Westminster Dog Show and feels somehow … well … inadequate. He sees police dogs sniffing out criminals on the six o’clock news and realizes he has no purpose in life. He watches reruns of “Lassie” and thinks, “What a cruel twist of fate that I was born so late. Oh, to have lived back in the days when dogs were fine and noble like Lassie.”
Cartoons depress Winston as he bemoans the fact that he can’t walk upright, wear clothes or talk like Huckleberry Hound, Goofy and Deputy Dawg. (Who knows? Perhaps he even tries when he has the house to himself.) He’s saddened when he realizes that he doesn’t command the respect of Snoopy, solve crimes like Scooby Doo, or save the world like Underdog.
“I coulda been a contender,” he moans in his best Marlon Brando voice.
Oh, to be sure, Winston has a good life. He’s loved, catered to and cared for. And he has even attained a certain level of limited fame by virtue of his frequent appearance in this very newspaper column. A big fish in a small pond, to be sure, but a fish nonetheless.
What more could a dog want?
A dog could want whatever he doesn’t have, and long to be whatever he isn’t.
And in that respect, I discover that my dog and I are sadly alike.
So here I am, stepping squarely on my own toes yet again because, to be honest, I live with a constant, tormenting sense of not measuring up. Airbrushed models, super-achievers, the rich, intelligent, famous, beautiful, and lucky – people who seem to have more and better – are relentlessly paraded before us every day in magazines and movies, on billboards and television.
Our culture peddles a cheap imitation of true value and it’s almost impossible not to buy into it.
The best alternative is to choose to see things the way God sees them.
In the Bible, we find the story of Samuel going to anoint the new king of Israel from among the sons of Jesse. Understandably, Samuel assumed the king would be one of Jesse’s oldest sons – maybe the tall, handsome one that looked like he just stepped out of the ancient Hebrew version of GQ magazine. But God used a different measuring stick: “… the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.’” (1 Samuel 16:7)
Okay, Winston — so you’re not Snoopy. But you are exactly what God made you to be – wrinkly, playful, devoted, and mine. And that’s enough. Let’s turn off the T.V. and be thankful.