Why is a dog deemed mans best friend? Dogs love whole heartedly, always forgive you when you get impatient, are always excited to see you, always greet you even if you woke them up, and they are loyal.

When they choose to love you, they choose you for life. This means defending you, caring for you, sticking by you, forgiving you, choosing to love you every day and showing it.

Whether or not you’re a dog person, no one can deny it’s a beautiful thing to see the loyalty of a dog, because humans, especially Americans, lost this trait in the name of capitalism and individualism.

Today it takes drastic situations to get this capability back. We see this in people who grow up among outer threats- gangs, mafia, abusive households- and they use this fierce pack loyalty to stay alive and feel protected.

But what about in an environment where we can thrive alone and even step on others to get what we want because we don’t need protection? Do we still need a sense of emotional safety and comfort, or is man’s best friend enough?

Any Hollywood movie or person who has climbed the ladder of success can tell you, yes. At the end of the day, the money and prestige acquired is empty without a clan, without a family. A family can’t exist happily or flourish without loyalty.

We love the Godfather and youth culture celebrates the squad and clique that rappers sing about their gangs. We want this loyalty, and all we need to do to get it, is get over this feeling that we can take care of everything ourselves, that we don’t need emotional safety and comfort. We need to look past capitalism’s economically based drive to make us self-sufficient and reestablish a pack in our lives.
Man should be man’s best friend.

Being loyal to yourself and your gut is crucial. Other people may be loyal to us and that is important, but it is more important to stay loyal to our true qualities and what we want to accomplish in our lives. If we don’t stay loyal to our dreams and goals, how can we expect anyone else to? If we stay loyal to ourselves, we can accomplish anything we want in our lives.

Marty and Caroline, Life Circles