What A Hampster Taught Me About Life

pheonix44 · 03-07-2009, 03:14 PM

I am writing about an incident that happened a few summers ago. Because today was just so cold I could not believe it. I had on one of those hats that covers your face up all the way and when I breathed frost formed around the edges of the hat and my eyelids got frost on them. It was unbelievable. I cannot believe I made it through these rough artic cold days. I guess that shows what I am made of huh. I thought that I would write about something related to a summer memory that I have, I thought that that would help keep me warm during these cold times and remind me that summer is just right around the corner, and hopefully it will be my last one in this state. Anyway a few summers ago my younger sister had about five hamsters in a small cage that she would keep in her living room. They were playful little things. I used to always be afraid of rats, hamsters, call them whatever but they are all the same to me but for some reason I was not afraid of these little things. They were clean and had neat little fur and seemed to be very active. I would love watching them get on the little wheel and exercise themselves. It amazed me how they could be so smart. There was this one hamster in the cage that seemed to be a little anti social. He would always hide in the corner and would not play with the other rodents he would not eat with them and he would not get on the wheel, so one would assume that he was not as healthy as the other hamsters. He also would not let you pick him up as the other hamsters would. The others would just let you pick them up and play with them and make themselves completely vulnerable to you, if you squeezed them to hard by accident there eyes would pop right out of there heads, but this one hamster if you tried to pick him up he would bite the hell out of you and then when he fell back into the cage he would go and hide back in the corner. So I guess you would call him the mean hamster out of the bunch.

So my sister decides that she does not want the hamsters anymore and wants to get rid of them. I tell her that I will take them. I lived in the attic and in the summer time it got extremely humid up there. If it was eighty degrees outside then it was boiling upstairs in that attic. I even bought a little fan to put on the hamsters to try and keep them cool. I bought food for them and everything. We went through a heat wave that summer and I begin to see the toll that it was taking on the hamsters. They begin to become real sluggish and tired looking. I knew the humidity was affecting them, but I figured that they would survive. One by one they begin to die. It was like one died each day and it was sad to me because when I would go to the cage and see these once jubilant creatures so weak looking I don’t know it just did something to me. I would see the other hamsters crawl over the dead one as if it did not even matter. I think that they were unaware of there own mortality. Anyway by the fifth day all but one of the five hamsters had died, and guess which one that was. You guessed it, it was the mean one, the one that would bite you if you tried to pick it up, the one that always stayed in the corner and mined his own business.

I wondered why all the gentle fun loving hamsters died while this one lived and showed no signs of dying. Was he just stronger, remember I told you I never seen him get on the wheel like the others. Or was he just tougher. Why did I consider him to be mean just because he bit me? I came to realize that this hamster was not mean at all, he was just focused on his survival and was well aware that dangers lurked every time that cage door opened. Granted I still believed he could have been more sociable with the other mice, but this one showed pure determination and pure will and I had to respect that. I let the hamster go, I don’t’ know how much longer it survived, but there was still a lesson to be learned here. For me it was that the people in my life that I perceive as being mean people sometimes are just assholes, but sometimes they are just using that as a defense to avoid being hurt rather it be mentally or physically. They are aware that the world is not a nice place and that sometimes you have to have a little edge to make your way in it. But those people should realize that their survival instinct does not have to come at the price of living life to the fullest. You can let your guard down every once in a while. You can have fun; you can explore and go out of your comfort zone. It is a shame to live life just to survive as opposed to living it to the fullest and being able to say that you really lived. Even though that mean hamster survived, the other hamsters lived. I hope those of you reading this understand what I am saying. Live life, don’t get caught up in being so defensive and so on guard that you never let the world in to see what a great person you are or could be. You don’t just live to survive. You live so that you can experience living. Thank you all for reading this, till tomorrow.

A8ch · 03-07-2009, 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pheonix44

...but there was still a lesson to be learned here. For me it was that the people in my life that I perceive as being mean people sometimes are just assholes, but sometimes they are just using that as a defense to avoid being hurt rather it be mentally or physically.

They are aware that the world is not a nice place and that sometimes you have to have a little edge to make your way in it. But those people should realize that their survival instinct does not have to come at the price of living life to the fullest. You can let your guard down every once in a while. You can have fun; you can explore and go out of your comfort zone. It is a shame to live life just to survive as opposed to living it to the fullest and being able to say that you really lived.

That was an interesting story and an insightful lesson.

Thanks!

Hermas

sanders9632 · 03-08-2009, 11:15 AM

That is a pretty good lesson.

tonywarrior2 · 03-09-2009, 05:24 AM

You could almost put this into an ebook - 'Hamster Wisdom'.

03-07-2009, 03:14 PM	#1
pheonix44 Robin Abernathy War Room Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 554 Thanks: 0 Thanked 57 Times in 45 Posts	What A Hampster Taught Me About Life I am writing about an incident that happened a few summers ago. Because today was just so cold I could not believe it. I had on one of those hats that covers your face up all the way and when I breathed frost formed around the edges of the hat and my eyelids got frost on them. It was unbelievable. I cannot believe I made it through these rough artic cold days. I guess that shows what I am made of huh. I thought that I would write about something related to a summer memory that I have, I thought that that would help keep me warm during these cold times and remind me that summer is just right around the corner, and hopefully it will be my last one in this state. Anyway a few summers ago my younger sister had about five hamsters in a small cage that she would keep in her living room. They were playful little things. I used to always be afraid of rats, hamsters, call them whatever but they are all the same to me but for some reason I was not afraid of these little things. They were clean and had neat little fur and seemed to be very active. I would love watching them get on the little wheel and exercise themselves. It amazed me how they could be so smart. There was this one hamster in the cage that seemed to be a little anti social. He would always hide in the corner and would not play with the other rodents he would not eat with them and he would not get on the wheel, so one would assume that he was not as healthy as the other hamsters. He also would not let you pick him up as the other hamsters would. The others would just let you pick them up and play with them and make themselves completely vulnerable to you, if you squeezed them to hard by accident there eyes would pop right out of there heads, but this one hamster if you tried to pick him up he would bite the hell out of you and then when he fell back into the cage he would go and hide back in the corner. So I guess you would call him the mean hamster out of the bunch. So my sister decides that she does not want the hamsters anymore and wants to get rid of them. I tell her that I will take them. I lived in the attic and in the summer time it got extremely humid up there. If it was eighty degrees outside then it was boiling upstairs in that attic. I even bought a little fan to put on the hamsters to try and keep them cool. I bought food for them and everything. We went through a heat wave that summer and I begin to see the toll that it was taking on the hamsters. They begin to become real sluggish and tired looking. I knew the humidity was affecting them, but I figured that they would survive. One by one they begin to die. It was like one died each day and it was sad to me because when I would go to the cage and see these once jubilant creatures so weak looking I don’t know it just did something to me. I would see the other hamsters crawl over the dead one as if it did not even matter. I think that they were unaware of there own mortality. Anyway by the fifth day all but one of the five hamsters had died, and guess which one that was. You guessed it, it was the mean one, the one that would bite you if you tried to pick it up, the one that always stayed in the corner and mined his own business. I wondered why all the gentle fun loving hamsters died while this one lived and showed no signs of dying. Was he just stronger, remember I told you I never seen him get on the wheel like the others. Or was he just tougher. Why did I consider him to be mean just because he bit me? I came to realize that this hamster was not mean at all, he was just focused on his survival and was well aware that dangers lurked every time that cage door opened. Granted I still believed he could have been more sociable with the other mice, but this one showed pure determination and pure will and I had to respect that. I let the hamster go, I don’t’ know how much longer it survived, but there was still a lesson to be learned here. For me it was that the people in my life that I perceive as being mean people sometimes are just assholes, but sometimes they are just using that as a defense to avoid being hurt rather it be mentally or physically. They are aware that the world is not a nice place and that sometimes you have to have a little edge to make your way in it. But those people should realize that their survival instinct does not have to come at the price of living life to the fullest. You can let your guard down every once in a while. You can have fun; you can explore and go out of your comfort zone. It is a shame to live life just to survive as opposed to living it to the fullest and being able to say that you really lived. Even though that mean hamster survived, the other hamsters lived. I hope those of you reading this understand what I am saying. Live life, don’t get caught up in being so defensive and so on guard that you never let the world in to see what a great person you are or could be. You don’t just live to survive. You live so that you can experience living. Thank you all for reading this, till tomorrow.

03-08-2009, 11:15 AM	#3
sanders9632 Warrior Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 27 Thanks: 1 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: What A Hampster Taught Me About Life That is a pretty good lesson.

03-09-2009, 05:24 AM	#4
tonywarrior2 ~~ Fire-Ready-Aim ~~ War Room Member Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Europe Posts: 75 Thanks: 4 Thanked 2 Times in 1 Post	Re: What A Hampster Taught Me About Life You could almost put this into an ebook - 'Hamster Wisdom'.
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