THE FIRST TREAT
MON
Something happened today.
My brain gave me a treat. I had been noticing something strange. Not strange in the supernatural sense. Nothing glowed. No choir descended from the ceiling. I did not suddenly understand the universe while standing in a beam of celestial light.
It was much more ordinary than that. I would do something—notice something, solve a small problem, make a kinder choice, follow a bit of curiosity—and there would be this tiny internal reward. A little click of satisfaction. A small pleasure. Not fireworks.
More like the quiet feeling of, Yes. That was good. And one day I compared those little rewards to giving a dog a treat. The phrase made me laugh. Doggy treats. The human brain handing itself a little biscuit. At first it was just funny. That was probably why I liked it.
I have never had much interest in solemn wisdom delivered from a mountaintop. If an idea cannot survive a little laughter, I am suspicious of it.
But then the joke opened. A doggy treat is not simply a snack. It is reinforcement. You ask the dog to sit. The dog sits. Treat. You are saying, in the most direct possible language: That. Do more of that. And suddenly the silly phrase became almost embarrassingly accurate.
When I noticed reality instead of panicking about it, there was a small reward. When I followed a clue instead of deciding in advance what it meant, there was a reward. When I did something kind that was not merely comfortable, there was a reward.
When I solved a small practical problem instead of turning it into evidence that the entire day was going to hell, there was a reward. That. Do more of that. I had stumbled into something that felt less like a theory than a practice.
