When we picked out Katniss, the employee at the shelter told us said pooch was the “runt of the litter” as she was smaller than her siblings. To me, Katniss looked the same size as her rowdy pup brothers who tried to untie my wife’s shoe.
Katniss, while her siblings played tug of war with my better half’s Nikes, was partially asleep and smelled like a truck stop bathroom—and I don’t mean one of those nice truck stops like Buc-ees on I-35. We thought she was stinky, but mellow, part of the reason we chose her.
Boy, were we wrong about the mellow part.
Anyway, Katniss as a full-grown dog is a little smaller than we thought she would be, but she turned out to be beautiful and smart like her human mommy–and more clingy than a hipster’s pair of Levi’s. Apparently no one informed her she was a runt.
Is anyone telling you that you’re too small, not pretty enough or not (fill in the blank) enough? If so, I suggest you be like Katniss and not pay any attention to those drinking Haterade. As human runts, we can take it one step further and use others’ negativity as motivation.
A young lady once told me I would never leave Ohio* and move to someplace like Texas, that I was “one of the nicest people she had ever met” but not good enough to be her boyfriend.
Talk about motivation.
Ten years later my dreams are slowly coming true—in Texas—and I’d like to thank that gal for fueling part of my fire. The rest of the fire was—and is—fueled by a soul-crushing fear of failure!
I think many of us at one time or another have been the runt. It’s up to us to decide what to do with the negative labels.
I just hope you don’t smell like a poorly serviced truck stop bathroom.
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*Not that there’s anything wrong with my beloved Ohio, but its economy was in the toilet at that point. Probably a truck stop toilet.
A Guero and His Perro 