An Ill-mannered Dog
Joo-hyung, who had taken Mola to the park, told me, ¡°Dad, I couldn¡¯t stay longer at the
dog park because
since Mola was so ill-mannered.¡± According to him, when he let go
of the dog so that she could play with the other dogs, she instead proceeded to
follow him to the picnic bench where he was sitting, and jumped up unto the
table, and tried to lick the others¡¯ faces and acted so carefree about it, without
even listening to the order to come down. The other people there just laughed
and told him about how cute she was, he felt so embarrassed that he hurriedly
came back home.
The
whole backyard, inside the fences of our house, is the
I¡¯ve
never heard people call me ¡°an ill-mannered kid¡± as I grew up. I do not remember
ever calling someone else ill-mannered, but this expression is used quite often.
Vaguely assuming that it is used for swearing or rebuking, I haven¡¯t really
thought deeply enough about it. There are no special reasons as to why I came
to ponder this, but all of a sudden I could see a new aspect on it.
Usually
when this word is used for rebuking or being scolded, someone must have done
something wrong or bad. But the focus of rebuking is not on the wrongdoings,
but rather on the lack of a good habit to distinguish and cope with the bad
thing. When I think about this issue, while keeping this in mind, a habit is
not made overnight but it is something that is formed through repetitive
practice, and it is not an easy thing. In other words, if you do not have good
habits, if you act naturally as you always have you may be led in the wrong way
and hear people calling you ¡°ill-mannered¡¦¡± frequently. I can agree to the
Korean saying, ¡°Old habits die hard.¡±
We
learn the skills to cope with a certain situation as we live. However,
unfortunately, since there are so many situations we humans learn, our lives
end while repeating things we shouldn¡¯t do. Laws also exist to punish justly
when we commit wrongdoings. Thus even if we try to learn from our mistakes
there is not enough time to learn all of them or time to distinguish bad things
that keep happening. Let¡¯s solve it as we trace back and reflect on this life which
is relative and so full of contradictions.
Rather
than learning things one by one we shouldn¡¯t do from the perspective of law,
culture, and the Bible, it would be better to learn things correctly in the
first place. And if we form right habits, by putting things into practice
continuously, we can do what we should do first instead of pursuing things we
shouldn¡¯t do no matter the circumstances we face.
The
Bible also teaches us what not to do in many ways. Deuteronomy, in the Old
Testament, instructs us to avoid these or those deeds or not to eat certain
things, particularly my favorite seafood (crap, tuna, mackerel, mackerel pike,
shrimp, etc) and wild boar. It is better to starve. The Ten Commandments that summarized
all of these laws tells us not to look at beautiful women, or to have greed for
a nice car, a big house, or look after one¡¯s own interest by lying. How can we
really live if we have to follow all these? But the New Testament, which was
recorded after Jesus came, replaced all of these ¡°dos and don¡¯ts¡± with a very
simple and few good habits to remember. A good example among them is ¡°Love your
God and neighbor.¡± When one understands these simple commands, and puts them
into practice until they become his own habits, he can get rid of all the bad
things that the Bible forbids.
If I had
trained Mola in certain simple rules like sit, wait,
come, stay, etc, she wouldn¡¯t become an ¡°ill-mannered dog¡± in front of others.
I feel uncomfortable since she hasn¡¯t formed those good habits. Because of that,
whenever I go out, I have to keep her on a leash and keep saying ¡°no¡± whenever
she is scolded. Realizing that we humans would never be called ¡°ill-mannered¡±
if we just have a few good habits, and my kids and I just form the habit of
practicing love for at least God and our neighbors.