I'm writing this on my flight from Dallas to Orlando where I'll be speaking at and attending CRE8. I'll be handing out some A Website Named Desire posters in my session. If you're attending the conference, drop by, say hello and grab a poster.

Last night my wife brought our laptop to bed with her. Somehow, we ended up flipping through pictures of our dog, Yoshi. We are nuts when it comes to taking pictures of our animals. We have thousands of photos of the cats and Yoshi. Anyhow, so there we are, flipping through pictures, laughing at all the moments we caught him on camera being a goofball when we hit the "Neutered" album.

Like any good dog owners, we took Yoshi to the vet a few months ago to get him neutered. I dropped by the vet's office after work to pick him up; they had me wait in the waiting area while they went in to grab him. A few minutes later, Yoshi emerged from the back with the vet's assistant looking like this.

I about died laughing despite the evident tragedy of the situation. He was totally awkward with the cone around his head and bumped into everything on his way from the back doorway to me – the door-frame, the reception desk, a planter sitting next to the desk, the ground (because he tilted his head) and eventually, into my leg. The cone, if you haven't figured it out by now, is meant to protect the dog from nursing its surgical wound by licking it.

Now, what I found interesting was that Yoshi didn't complain for a minute about this whole episode. He figured it was just a part of life and couldn't be bothered enough to dwell on the inconveniences it caused in his day-to-day life. He was just happy to be home, to be reunited with his parents and his sisters and to finally be chewing on his beloved bone again. And boy, did he show it through all his bump-waggity panting and awkward play bows.

To put it into perspective - my puppy woke up one morning, found himself all alone in a strange place that smelled like dogs and rubbing alcohol, had his body altered in one of the worst ways possible, and returned home with an absolutely inconvenient contraption attached to his head that, to him, was there to stay forever. Despite that, he was happy as a button when we got him back. No complaints, no whining, nothing.

What is the point of my telling you this? Well, nothing in particular, really. I don't know about you, but life in this connected, virtual, software-driven world can be pretty isolating and overwhelming at times and I like having some memories like this in reserve to bail me out whenever I start feeling down. They help put things into perspective. I'm wondering how others cope with the daily stresses of life. How do you put things into perspective when you're feeling down about something?

Write a comment and tell us what you think. Stay in touch with us through Twitter.