Comfort Ain't All It's Cracked Up to Be

I love a good pair of slippers. Martine, our cat, has claimed my old pair for himself. He can often be found sleeping on top of one with a paw (or two) shoved into the shoe.

There are plenty of other creature comforts I enjoy: an artisan ceramic mug filled with freshly brewed tea, a good scalp massage, cozy sweaters, the crisp feeling of a freshly ironed button-up shirt. I could go on.

I want my horses to have their comforts, too, but not at the expense of preparing them for living a life in our domestic world. I try and play the long game when it comes to horses, and in the long run a horse will always be better off having learned to work through a discomfort and prepared for what we cannot predict or control. The same could be said for us bipeds; better to work through those uncomfortable spots and develop skills to handle what life throws at you. You'll live better for it.

An un-named Appy colt from my time apprenticing with Barb Gerbitz in Illinois, learning how to get okay with a flank rope.

Pandora being introduced to a noisy, flappy rain slicker - a super handy thing to have going for you when you get caught in a downpour on the trail and need to scramble for your raincoat!

Depending on who you talk to in the horse world (and the parenting world, interestingly enough) there are two fairly divergent views on this:

#1: Every discomfort/difficulty/"problem" is an opportunity for growth and you should use it as such.

#2: Discomforts/difficulties/"problems" are quirks in the horse's personality and in order to avoid stressing the horse you learn to work around them/tolerate them.

There are some horse people who reside somewhere in the middle, but the tendency is to skew heavily to one side or the other. Probably not a tall order to figure out where I fall...

For me, it comes down to priorities. I don't compete/show. I haven't for a long time. Honestly, I may someday go back to it, but it would be purely for the enjoyment of doing a thing with my horse and far less about how I shape up in a judge's eyes compared to other horse and rider pairs. A ribbon, trophy or other accolade would simply be icing on the cake, but a lack thereof wouldn't bother me in the least.

When you compete, you inevitably end up working on the things that you are to be judged on. Those things become the priorities. Those things are also the things other competitors are being judged on and thus those things take on even higher significance because now not only do you have to get them as good as you can with your own horse but better than other rider's horses, too. It reorganizes how you spend your time with your horse and what you work on during that time. It also means that in the moment when things are falling apart you don't have the space to say "sorry, we gotta stop and work on this right now" because you need to complete the test/finish the course/beat the clock.

This is not to say competing is bad. It isn't. I have students who compete. The reality simply is that the purpose of wholeheartedly competing requires one to reprioritize and rewrite the timeline for what must get done and when. It is what it is. What not competing allows me to focus fully on is making sure I don't get too far ahead of what I or my horse needs right now so I can ensure they will feel good about what I ask later on. Doing this takes quite a bit of self-discipline and if we're being honest, courage; it means what you're doing often feels (or seems like to an outsider) like drudgery and/or you're having to tackle some things that YOU aren't all that comfortable with. 

True story: my brothers have often given me grief - gentle, prodding fun, but still grief - about what kind of parent I am going to be. They have joked for years that my I'm going to be a "Nazi parent" (I'm cognizant about using that phrase these days given the heightened state of our world presently, so please understand in this context it's simply an indication of their understanding of how regimented, strict and disciplined I am - and was with them as the oldest growing up - and how that's probably going to bleed into how I parent). 

Over the years, my siblings have softened not just because they've gotten older but because they've started to see how that discipline has played out in my world. They've seen how my husband and I have figured out how to make the lifestyle we want work on modest salaries, they've seen how we take care of things like our vehicles with pride so they'll last us a long time, and they've noticed how well-behaved and yet happy and content our animals are. I think they've realized that yes, I'm pretty strict about certain things and yes, I expect a lot from my animals and from people in my life, but those expectations are not unreasonable or detrimental when they are accompanied by clarity, empathy and fairness. It's the difference between simply cracking the whip and demanding perfection versus extending a hand to say "hey, I see you're struggling, let me help you get fixed up". I'd like to think I'll be able to take all of this and apply it to raising kids someday, God willing; I'd also like to think my kids will turn out all the better for it.

So yes, by all means, afford your horses - and yourself - the comfort you deserve (and need!) But make sure those comforts are meaningful and intentional, not simply a passive excuse to avoid "doing the work" to make a real difference to the animal or yourself long term. So often, "doing the work" IS the path to long-lasting comfort...it just doesn't feel like it at the start.