Five Minutes of Love

I have been taking care of a couple of cats off and on this summer, and both of them are very affectionate creatures. Usually I loved it when they would come up to me asking for me to pet them, but every now and again it was an inconvenient time. Maybe I was walking with a big load of laundry, or I had just gotten home from a long day’s work…for whatever reason, every once in awhile I would feel a little annoyed at the cats’ demand for attention.

When I first started noticing my feelings of annoyance, I had to laugh at myself. Cats are famous for being independent and low-maintenance; if I was feeling annoyed because cats were making too many demands on my time and attention, it is probably for the best I am single — humans in relationship tend to make far more demands than cats do!

I decided that no matter how busy I felt, or what I would rather be doing, I would always stop and pet the cat that wanted it, partly because I knew the cats were lonely, and partly because I thought it was ridiculous that my emotional experience could be that cats are too demanding.

What I discovered was that in five minutes or less, the cat would usually feel totally satisfied and stop asking for attention. I also discovered that five minutes can feel like a long, juicy time to have a little love fest with purring and petting. There I would be, petting the cat, and I’d think, “My God, this is taking so long, I’d better get back to work,” and I’d look at my watch and only two minutes would have passed.

It made me realize that there’s pretty much always time enough for love, at least in my life where five minutes is rarely or never the difference between success and failure. Once I realized the cats’ demand for attention had a time limit, I felt like I could always take a mini-break to give them some attention when they wanted it, even if it was only for 20 seconds.

I thought of it as giving “Five Minutes of Love,” no matter how long or short a time it was, and I started practicing it more and more. I’m much more likely now to go pet the neighbor’s dogs when I hear them barking, or reply to a text message in a timely fashion. If someone wants a hug, or some reassurance, I’m more likely to give it knowing that even 30 seconds of connection can be a game-changer.

It reminds me of an experience I had while living in Guatemala. I was walking up to the experimental farm where I volunteered with my husband at the time, which was about a two-mile walk uphill from town, when a colleague from the farm came running down the hill at a pretty good clip. When he saw us he stopped in his tracks and proceeded to have normal small talk conversation with us as if he hadn’t just been running. As our conversation went on, I could feel myself and my then-husband get more and more nervous — wasn’t he in a hurry? Weren’t we being rude by detaining him? Finally we said that he must be in a hurry and we’d better let him go, and he said, “Si pues” and took off running again.

It struck both of us at the time how different the person with Guatemalan culture reacted to that situation compared to the people with U.S. cultural backgrounds. In the U.S., we value being on time, so as U.S. citizens, I and my then-husband felt physically uncomfortable that we were slowing this guy down when he was in a hurry. We speculated that in Guatemala, being on time was less important (as a Peace Corps volunteer who watched people trickle into 3 o’clock meetings until 4 or 5 in the afternoon, I can say there is some pretty good evidence that this is true) and that acknowledging fellow humans is more important. One thing that struck both of us was that not only did my colleague stop to talk to us, he genuinely stopped being in a hurry while he did so. My best guess is, he only stopped for a minute or two, but it seemed much longer, just like with the cats.

I am inspired in my own life by his example to make more time for people no matter how busy I feel. In that moment of feeling busy, every second feels important, yet when I take a broader perspective, the minute or five I spend on human connection will make a palpable difference in my emotions and the emotions of those I’m interacting with, whereas I’ll probably never notice that I finished work at 5:03 or 5:10 instead of 5 o’clock. I have also been inspired to ask friends for “five minutes of love” when I’m feeling in need of a little support. Five minutes of love is so easy to give, with such great rewards.