Chester is a rescue.

He is a Golden Retriever mix who came from a shelter in San Antonio, Texas, through a rescue group who specializes in his breed. His fur is gold, as are the rings surrounding his focused, ever-vigilant eyes. For a Golden Retriever, he has short legs, but you wouldn’t know it as fast as he can chase a ball or a squirrel.

When he isn’t zipping across the yard, Chester likes to chill out — preferably under my feet when I am working on my computer or watching a show. That is, unless it’s dinner time, when he transforms into a combination of a whirling dervish and the Tazmanian Devil.

“It’s not Wild Turkey Surprise,” I sometimes say as he crunches away, practically inhaling his bowl of food.

When I leave for work, I put Chester into a small cage, which is made of thin metal bars that he can see through, and has a puffy blanket floor for him to sleep on. It’s an accepted practice called “crating,” and it’s supposed to help him feel safer and more secure when he is alone. As a reward for getting into his cage, I give him a small treat. He likes it so much that he runs into the cage by himself and waits for me to give the treat to him and lock the door. He doesn’t need the treat, and it doesn’t last long or fill him up, but he is willing to do what it takes to get it, including putting himself in a cage.

It seems to me that we are all a bit like Chester.

We trade our freedoms for treats every day. We buy expensive things, and then have to work hard to earn the money to pay for them, often paying interest on top for the privilege of buying them now instead of when we actually have the money to pay for them.

We invest in, and remain in, relationships that cause us great suffering, convincing ourselves that the good outweighs the bad, that the treats are worth our loss of freedom.

We vote for laws that restrict our freedoms, telling ourselves that we will feel “safer.”

We are trading all the time. Trading our freedom for treats.

Trading time that we will never get back, and freedoms that cannot be replaced, for treats that we do not need.

I have worked very hard in my life, for as long as I can remember. I have missed holidays, vacations, and time with people I love, trading that time for time that I was working to pay for my family’s lifestyle – a lifestyle that my family wanted, but did not need. I also spent a large part of my life suffering in a relationship, telling myself that it would be okay. Although I did not understand this at the time, I was putting myself in a cage, trading my freedom for occasional treats.

Treats that I wanted, but did not need.

But what if we could change all that? What if we could make a new choice to work less, play more, have fewer things, and spend more time with people we love? Maybe then we could be like Chester when his cage door finally swings open and he rushes to greet me, his tail wagging furiously.

Then maybe, just maybe, we would be happy.