False Sense of Security

  In life, it is easy to get keyed up over safety.  We all want to feel safe and secure.  We bar the doors, lock the windows, fence the yard and generally shut ourselves off from the world so we are not put in the position of being harmed.  Most of the time, we feel confident that we have put up enough barricades to protect ourselves from harm.  Is that a good thing?  Sometimes, we get a false sense of security from all of our alarms, surveillance cameras and locks. We get lackadaisical and lose our sense of awareness.  Perhaps all of these so-called safety measures have done nothing more than make us prisoners of our own insecurities.  Just a thought.

  This whole jumbled up bunch of thoughts rambled about in the head today as I took down yet another part of the fence around the rose garden.  There is not much use in having the fence anymore since we have no pups needing a closed in play yard (the old dog,  Mr. PJ, does not play anymore) and it literally became an eyesore.  I had removed one section months ago then got sidetracked so it was time to start again.  The gate, however, still swings on its hinges as if it is doing a great job of protecting us.  In reality, it is doing nothing.  However!  A few days ago, it gave a man a great sense of security albeit a false sense.

  Last week, a man came knocking at the front door.  He was hunting for my brother and had the wrong house.  It just so happened that he knocked at the door right next to the dog's bed.  Mr. PJ jumped up and proceeded to protect the house!  He took that bulldog stance, puffed himself up to look a lot bigger and stronger than he is and barked with gusto.  The man could see this ferocious watchdog through the french doors and was obviously a bit leery.  He stepped back to the gate and closed it behind him.  This was not the brightest move since the whole section of fence was missing!  Had the dog been let out of the house, he could have easily cornered the man behind the gate by merely going around the fence.  A false sense of security was provided by a gate...that had no connecting fence!

  So, while it is easy to lull ourselves into feeling that we have done everything we can to protect ourselves, we need to make sure it is not just a false sense of security.  Instead of hanging that gate without an adjoining fence, we need to just be more aware of our surroundings and learn to protect ourselves if need be.  Trusting a bunch of safety devices is sort of like trusting that fence that is not there.  It ain't happenin', folks.  It ain't happenin'.