The Cat and the Saucer of Milk


At one of my jobs I had a boss I worked closely with. Many of the job duties was my first time doing them and there were a few I really couldn’t pull off. Due to his being out of the office and shop most days he wanted me to learn a new job duty that would help him out and me during slow days. Deep down I really didn’t want to learn a new trick. I felt at the time I had learned a great deal of stuff I never ever thought I would be doing.

   He was trying to force me into learning something I didn’t feel ready for and it got him upset because I wasn’t grasping what he was trying to teach me and I got upset with him because he was trying to make me do something I didn’t want to do. After a long pause while I collected myself so I could explain to him in a nice way I calmly told him that with me it’s better to leave the saucer of milk out where I can go to it rather than you trying to make me drink it in your time frame. Well, it wasn’t word for word what I said back then but the gist of the story was put something in my mind, don’t force it on me and if it’s something that’s meant to be I will gravitate towards it on my time frame. He was fascinated with my analogy and he did back off. Out of boredom and curiosity I went to him during a slow day and asked him to teach me.
   We had kept in touch after he sold his business and each time we met up to shoot the shit he would bring the cat and the saucer of milk story up and would thank me. He confessed to me that I had given him a different perceptive. Some of the skills I learned have faded but not the life lessons. He’s gone on to different areas in his journey but I can safely say that some of the life lessons he learned from me still linger

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