One morning last week I gave my dogs some food and they gave me some food for thought. Not a bad trade. Whenever I go out, whether to feed the doggies or to do something in the back yard, our biggest dog seems certain that I came out to throw a tennis ball for him to go fetch.
The problem is that he misses an important concept in the game, which is that in order for me to throw the ball, I have to have the ball. He, however, grabs the ball in his mouth and holds on to it, and is ever so reluctant to let it go, though what he really wants is for me throw it. He does not seem to grasp the nature of the problem, which is that unless he lets the ball go, I cannot throw it for him. I know he knows that, and he knows that if he will let the ball go I will throw it for him. I think his natural instincts just won't let him do what he needs to for things to move forward.
That made me think that in many ways we people are not unlike little Skruffy. We know what we want, and we even know what we really need to do to get it, but we just cannot let go of things we are holding on to that keep us from achieving what we want or being where we want to be. Our natural tendency to sink our teeth into past issues and not let go prevents us, and we are bound by habits and feelings that stop our progress.
I think that between the crunchy tidbits I gave him and the morsels for thought he gave me, I got the better deal.