That time we got poop on the wall
questionable advice for the new year
Welcome to Congrats, You Played Yourself, a newsletter about growing up and celebrating all the mistakes made along the way.
Happy (almost) New Year, friends. On Monday, I asked y’all what you would tell your December 2019 Self — jump in there if you haven’t had the chance yet.
I’m giving some unconventional but hopefully helpful advice for the next year below, so hit that subscribe button to keep getting it.
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Big news, in case you haven’t heard: I’m officially a Dog Mom now! Which means I do Dog Mom things like carry treats in my hoodie pockets and cheer extra loudly for poop and occasionally (hopefully seldomly) step in potty time accidents. It also means that I’m in full on training mode: clicker training, crate training, treat training, all that puppy jazz.
While deep in a couple TikTok dog trainer holes and Instagram puppy doom scrolls, I got hooked on this dog trainer at Say It Once Dog Training. Besides his majestic mane and nice-to-look at face, he has a simple, easy to remember and executable way of training. But even more than that: he’s, like, legit wise.
He was talking about dogs but more often than not, I found myself considering taking his dog advice as just good life advice.
*replace “dog” with “self” and *MIND BLOWN*
I mean, come on. This dude should train humans.
One example: he talked about how we can’t expect puppies to just know How To Dog automatically. They aren’t born all-knowing and if we treat them that way, they will fail. Dog training is a process, he says, not a phase.
We don’t expect puppies to know not to pee on the incredible IKEA sectional you got from the Last Chance section or to appreciate the amazing deal you got on it. They learn it, through your repeated storytelling and encouraged guidance to the puppy pads when you see them sniffing around.
Then, Vinnie’s dog training wisdom reminded me of something that happened earlier this summer.
My roommate and I fostered a dog (through the wonderful Wags and Walks, with whom I just foster failed and adopted Slater through!) whose name was Hummus but we immediately re-named her to Rocket, not just because Hummus was a pretty dumb name that encouraged no satisfactory nicknames, but mainly because we were inspired by the nature in which she would launch herself off the couch. She had a bit of trouble figuring out potty training, and as she hadn’t had all of her shots yet, we weren’t able to bring her outside safely. We did our best to reward when she went on the puppy pads and to discourage anywhere else.
*Rocky, in all her glory
One time in particular, she was a bit, well — constipated. She was frustrated and couldn’t find the right spot to do her bidness in the living room. Driven mad by her desperation to go, she ended up flying into a corner and pooping on the wall.
Yep. On the wall. Poop.
And she was terrified of it.
We couldn’t help but laugh — not directly at her, we aren’t monsters — and once we did, she lightened up a bit, wagging her tail once she realized the poop on the wall wasn’t as big of a threat or embarrassment that she originally thought it was and then after cleaning it up, we gave her a bit of love and told her it’s alright. Everybody poops on the wall, sometimes.
You’re an idiot — and that’s a good thing
The thing is: growing up is our human training. And it’s a fucking messy bit of business. It’s our poop on the wall. Each year brings new opportunities under the guise of challenges, temptations, downfalls, failures. Life isn’t perfect, and we don’t expect it to be, but for some reason, we expect ourselves and others to be all-knowing, to automatically know How To Dog, if you will. That’s why teenagers think they know what’s best and that yeah, they can drive drunk safely, or why unfaithful people think they know what’s best and that yeah, they can cheat and everything will be okay, or why Juju thinks she knows what’s best and that yeah, she can eat like shit and drink no water and still function like a totally healthy human being. (hahahaha)
As Mark Manson so delicately put it, “2020 was one dumpster fire of a year.” The legendary author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck asked his readers, What was your biggest lesson of 2020? One of his readers said,
The one lesson that keeps coming back to me this year is how something can be both good and bad. If you only see the bad, then you are missing the good and also if you only see the good, you are missing the bad (and the chance to grow).
So this, on the eve of 2021, is what I am asking you to do next year: celebrate that poop on the wall. Use it as an excuse to fail. To fuck up. Use life as your human training for learning and falling and getting back up and teaching and figuring it all out, eventually. Learn How To Dog without comparing yourself to past versions of yourself or others. Own your failures just as hard as you own your wins — those missteps are what lead you to your gains.
Growing up is a hard thing to do. Human training is a process, not a phase. Everybody poops on the wall, at some point. You may as well get a laugh out of it.
Happy 2021, CYPY people.