The message begins with this question:

“Why do dogs like to ride in cars with their heads out the window, when they get bugs in their eyes?”

Now, I know what it’s like to ride along and get bugs in my eyes. Riding a bike’ll do that. Bugs in eyes, grasshoppers slamming into me on the old dirt road out in the country…how I loved that road when the tracks were dry, flat and smooth. I was glad that they didn’t gravel it. The occasional collisions with insects didn’t stop me.

Why? Well, dogs do it for the thrill of the ride!

Life is the ride. The wind is the thrill. The bugs are the “contrast” — the things that happen that we don’t particularly like. But without the things we don’t like, we’d never really expand and grow, would we? We’d just sit in our chairs in our boring jobs, staring at a computer screen, mouths agape, robotically doing whatever we did. No desires, no contrast, no motivation to see things change for the better.

A dull, unfulfilling, unrewarding life. Of course, we wouldn’t know the difference, would we?

Do you want that? Do I want that?

Much as I think (all too often) that I wish my problems and bad feelings would just disappear, I know that without the problems (that I like to re-word as CHALLENGES), I would not have the reward and deliciousness of seeing them solved.

It’s like the feeling you get when you just ate a taco laden with hot sauce, or a super-spicy Szechuan Chinese dish. Doesn’t it feel like your palate is cleansed, somehow? Think about how discomfort makes us cleanse ourselves so that we feel comfort again. There’s the “ahhhh” feeling. Crying can do that. “I feel cleansed,” some say. Sometimes a good scream from one’s very gut can work. I find that as I ALLOW my feelings to just BE FELT without ruminating about the problem and obsessing about it and judging myself and turning it over and over in my mind, I let them pass through and I feel better. Ahhh. That was done. Whew. That feels good! Had I not had the “bad” feelings, I’d not have had the contrasting good feelings. (So are “bad” feelings really bad? Hmmmm!)

It’s sure a lot quicker than trying to not feel the feelings at all.

And good old Rover knows all about this. He doesn’t mind the bugs, because he loves the thrill lots more.

Enjoy your bugs, because the thrill of life is worth it. It really is.