DO YOU KEEP PETS?

Waikato Times, Volume 126, Issue 21035, 10 February 1940, Page 17 (Supplement)

DO YOU KEEP PETS?

Don’t Waste Your Life On Shadows not referring to dogs, cats, budgerigars or tropical fish, but to much less desirable things which some of us take into our lives and cherish with a devotion they don’t deserve. Indeed, we pamper them till, like spoilt over-grown puppies, they are but a nuisance to ourselves and everybody else. Common among these undesirable pets are illnesses. Minor illnesses, I mean, such as indigestion, headaches and susceptibility to colds. Nobody could make a pet of a serious illness, any more than of a raging tiger. Yet where minor ailments are concerned, an amazing number of otherwise sane people lose their sense of proportion. They waste time and money on all sorts of experimental diets, medicines and treatments, none of which do them much good for the simple reason that they don’t want to be cured. They don’t want to lose a pet which gives them something to fuss about and which can be used so conveniently as an excuse to shirk responsibilities or engagements. If you have been dallying in this way with any symptoms of illhealth, do put a stop to it. Go to your doctor, put your faith in him, do exactly what he tells you and make up your mind to be cured. Even if you are not cured, face up to your trouble like a soldier facing an enemy. Don’t pander to it and make it into a spoilt and greedy pet that eats away your strength and your power of resistance to difficulties. Making Spoilt Pets Of Your Figures The modern cult of grace and beauty, has led some of us into making spoilt pets of our figures, and the woman who does that is nothing but a nuisance. She insists on keeping to her spartan diet and carrying out her allotted exercises even when she is obviously causing inconvenience to others, while *she lets the slightest increase in her weight worry her desperately and take all the pleasure out of life. Now a figure treated in this way behaves like a spoilt child. It is far more likely to punish its owner for the slightest self-indulgence it is far more difficult to keep in trim than the figure which has been brought up on a healthy normal diet with reasonable exercise, but which has never been allowed to become an obsession. Never make a pet of your body, whether from the health or the beauty point of view, unless you want to throw your whole outlook on life out of its proper focus. Remember the old poet who said of bodies : “They are ours but they are not us.” Nowadays far too many of us make pets of our bodies. Hobbies are excellent in themselves, and everybody should have at least one But they are only sidelines in life. £ho , uld nev< A be allowed to monopolise all our interests so bores they make US self_centre d a nd narrow-minded if not downright If you take up a hobby, don’t plunge blindly into it, neglecting ay ® r , y °*? er d nt ? rest ' or you wlll make it into yet another of these faction 1 in S ° mUCh en£rgy and g ‘ Ve S 0 little real satisThe Over-zealous Housewife Then there’s the woman who makes a pet of her house who spends so much precious time on unnecessary dusting and polishing r p r p S ; e by h P o U t n e g i‘ h ft hoUSe before the ha “ - d mrcr^ d the^f ’ s th .e man who makes a pet of his garden, who gloats hut -Jh Sl -® bt °t I , l i nma u Ulate lawns, weedless beds and prize roses but who will not allow his children to play on the grass for fear thevdelphiniums’‘‘b “ thr ° W a ball f ° r of them, you/own'or otoerVeonfe’f ‘° saVe5 aVe ChUdren ab ° Ut you ’ lots come animals, especially dogs 3 P °° r SeC ° nd l ° children ’ pets^for’ heaven’s 6 sake choose« 9 " to kee » energies on mere shadows 8 D ° n 1 Waste your life and