How to Live Like Your Cat

Copyright

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thestate.co.uk

This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate 2017

Copyright © Stéphane Garnier 2017

English translation © Roland Glasser

Cover image © Shutterstock

Cover design by Heike Schüssler

Stéphane Garnier asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008276775

Ebook Edition © November 2017 ISBN: 9780008276782

Version: 2018-09-10

Dedication

To Ziggy,

my cat

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Foreword

Your Friend, the Cat

Your Cat Is Free

Your Cat Is Charismatic

Your Cat’s Day

Your Cat Is Calm (Most of the Time)

Your Cat Knows How to Assert Itself

Your Cat Is Wise

Your Cat Thinks About Itself First

Your Cat’s Day

Your Cat Accepts Itself as It Is, Your Cat Loves Itself

Your Cat Has a Certain Swagger, Your Cat Is Proud

Your Cat Is the Centre of Attention

Your Cat Is Impenetrable to Judgement

Your Cat’s Day

Your Cat Is Curious by Nature

Your Cat Is In-de-pen-dent

Cat Secrets

Your Cat Brims with Self-Confidence

Your Cat Knows How to Delegate

Your Cat’s Day

Your Cat Knows How to Take the Time to Live

Your Cat Adapts to Everything Quickly

Your Cat Loves Calm

Your Cat Chooses Its Own Company

Your Cat’s Day

Your Cat Knows How to Rest, It Loves to Sleep

Your Cat Knows When to Say No (and Readily Does So)

Your Cat Knows How to Avoid Conflict (as Much as Possible)

Your Cat Adores Its Home, and Marks Out Its Territory

Your Cat’s Day

Your Cat Trusts You

Your Cat Is a Natural Boss

Cat Secrets

Your Cat Is Tenacious

Your Cat Is Always Cautious

Your Cat’s Day

Your Cat Has a Huge Need for Love

Your Cat Is Serene by Nature

Your Cat Knows What It Wants, and Is Direct About It

Your Cat Dares to Ask (All the Time)

Your Cat’s Day

Your Cat Is Always Honest

Your Cat Is Silent and Observant

Your Cat Is a Sincere Friend

Your Cat Focuses on the Essential

Your Cat’s Day

Your Cat Always Remains Natural

Your Cat Is Humble and Indulgent

Cat Secrets

Your Cat Knows How to See the Fun in Everything

Your Cat Is Beautiful … and Knows It

Your Cat’s Day

Your Cat Is at Ease in All Situations

Your Cat Shows Empathy

Live Like a Cat

Your Cat Always Has the Last Word

Test: Assess Your Cat Quotient (CQ)

Results of the Cat Quotient Test

About the Author

About the Publisher

Foreword

Some days, you don’t feel like going to work, watching the news, taking every catastrophe to heart or even caring about your own future. You don’t feel like having an opinion on the government’s latest reforms which make you gnash your teeth, any more than you feel like worrying over your career trajectory, or knowing if you’ll have much of a pension by the time you retire.

You don’t want to be constantly plagued by your own personal problems, which are themselves linked to those of your family and friends, and you don’t want to fret about the quality of your diet, or feel guilty for ‘destroying the planet’ every time you draw a bath.

You long to switch off and unplug from it all, just for a day, just for a moment, and breathe.

I look round to see that Ziggy, my cat, has padded silently into my study. He stares at me, blinking, then leaps onto my desk and lies down on the keyboard. It’s a little ritual that we’ve had for years now, stretching back to when I still did much of my writing in longhand and he used to bite the cap of my pen. It makes me laugh, this game we play. It’s as if on the one hand he loves that I write, but on the other hand he does all he can to prevent me writing.

Up until this moment, I considered his soft pawing at me, his comings and goings between my lap and the keyboard, to be nothing more than affectionate games. But perhaps he’s been trying to tell me something else all these years, something as simple as: ‘Hey, don’t you feel like downing tools for the day?’

Down tools. As he nuzzles his nose into my neck, I realise that, today, I don’t care if I’ll be able to pay the bills, or whether the stock market is about to crash. After all, does he care?

Maybe this is the secret he’s been wanting to communicate all this time: know how to let go, focus on the essentials, think about your wellbeing, be like him. Live like your cat!

Cats clearly live much better than we do. So why not follow their example?

This I did, by decoding how they operate, their aspirations and lifestyle. It had been there right in front of me, all these years, without me realising.

We have everything to learn from cats, in both our personal and our professional lives.

I invite you to discover their simple secrets, so you can take a step back from your everyday, find your wellbeing again, and smile.

But what do cats do right? How should we take inspiration from them?

From this day forward, imagine another way of viewing life, by living like your cat.

Your Friend, the Cat

‘What greater gift than the love of a cat?’

CHARLES DICKENS

Cats have fascinated us since time immemorial. We have observed them and attempted to understand their strengths, their qualities, their behaviours, their habits and their compulsions. There is a kind of magic in their ability to live serenely and to be happy – assets that cats naturally possess, and which we can certainly use in our everyday lives, both personal and professional.

Cats follow a philosophy of life that could be summed up in a few words: eat, play, sleep, look out for their comfort, and do only that which pleases them. That’s already a lot compared with us. But there is much more, as you will see.

Cats have a lifestyle that allows them to live without stress, for cats have a single priority: their wellbeing. By bringing ourselves closer to their way of living, we can open up a fresh perspective, a new world view, while gaining a different, deeper understanding of ourselves.

So welcome to the cats’ world view, their thoughts and their philosophy. Learn to appreciate life as they do.

Your Cat Is Free

‘I am the Cat who walks by himself, and I wish to come into your cave’

Rudyard Kipling, JUST SO STORIES

Freedom, cherished freedom. Who hasn’t dreamed of making freedom the driving force of their life?

Freedom to come and go, freedom to do only that which pleases you, freedom of action, freedom to follow your whims and heart’s desires, freedom to be as free in your mind as you are in your body. Freedom!

Paradoxically, we all have a propensity to hobble ourselves again and again, to shackle ourselves, be it to bank loans that oblige us to work ever harder, to futile objects that seem so precious in our eyes, to habits that have turned into obligations we no longer even see, or to toxic people we force ourselves to make time for. Perhaps the moment has come to free yourself of these shackles.

Why not try to retain only that which you love, to preserve those relationships which please you, to perform only those activities you enjoy, and to work solely at jobs that fulfil you? Heed only your own counsel, and pursue your true desires.

A lovely fantasy, you might think. Not for cats, who have chosen to be free, to have what they like, be what they like, and live how they like every moment of their lives. Freedom is a constant for cats; it’s much more than second nature. Being free is the very heart of their lives. The rest matters little to them in the end, whereas we often relegate this ideal to booking some time off work when our schedule allows.

You want to live like your cat? Be free as the air and do only what you have chosen to do.

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