A Letter from the Founder: Dec. 25, 2005

It is the nature of life to go towards greater happiness. Consequently it can also be said that it is the nature of life to go away from suffering.

This is the natural volition of man. And it is this that we see in our daily lives. We spend our days going towards that which is pleasing and going away from that which is not. This is the freedom that we enjoy. And it is this freedom that we live for.

There are those of us, however, whom we must consider less fortunate, those who are not free to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. And it is on behalf of these people that I stand before you today.

My name is Sachin Mayi and I am the founder of Share-A-Pet Org. Inc., the organization dedicated to bringing happiness to those who are unable to pursue it themselves. Hundreds of amazing volunteers and their pets have joined our mission and are sharing love and improving the lives of thousands of impaired individuals. I say ‘impaired’ because these individuals are not capable of helping themselves. Just as a visually impaired individual needs the assistance of glasses to see, these individuals need our assistance to feel love and joy in their lives. Don’t get me wrong, when I say ‘our’, I don’t just mean our volunteers, I mean all of us!

In our pursuit of happiness we have become so busy that we have forgotten those of us who are not capable of helping themselves. We have become so busy trying to get more and more of the pie that we have forgotten how much joy there is in sharing that pie with others. You would be amazed at how much joy there is in sharing. It brings tears to my eyes to think of how much of what we are frantically pursuing we are missing by not sharing. Those of us who have taken the time to give happiness have all been amazed at the happiness we received in return. Little did we know that it would come back one hundred fold.

But we have become the country famous for sticking our elderly and otherwise restricted out of the way so that we can pursue our own desires. Now other countries, which have had the tradition of caring for their loved ones, are following in our footsteps. It is a sad decline in the world consciousness. In the search for superficial treasures we are locking away our greatest treasure. Life is no longer being lived; it is just being chased. We spend such little time with our children between school and work and extracurricular activities. Then they get older and experience the same with their new families. Then all the wisdom and love that our elderly have to give is locked away and forgotten. For each individual life, we can count the years of sharing on one hand. The rest is just holidays.

This has to change if we want to keep considering ourselves human.

Our organization came about because we saw the need to help. We advertise that we are here to help the elderly and the otherwise restricted, but it just so happened that we are helping both sides. Our efforts have surprisingly led us back to our lost treasure, even if it initially belonged to someone else.

But the question was, how do we get all these people competing with the Joneses, to take the time to help themselves while helping others? It is not like we checked our elderly into Club Med with gourmet food and cabana service. No, they are often in institutions that smell bad and look so barren as to be one step away from being a prison cell. Throw on top of all of that the effort that it takes for two people to break the ice and get chummy and you have quite a barrier. So we had to figure out a way to trick people into volunteering for our cause.

Well every great trick has a great distraction and there is nothing more distracting than kids and pets. And since the kids are busy gearing up to compete with the Joneses’, we went with the pets. And we got really lucky, because not only did it turn out that the pets are great distractions and great ice-breakers, they are great therapists as well. Pet assisted therapy is changing the world on both sides of the fence. Our pets are leading a revolution that is bringing smiles and joy back to everyone. They are becoming the heroes of the new age. They are leading us to the lost treasure.

Blessed are those who have joined our cause and similar causes to improve the lives of others. I salute you, the visionaries of a new and better age.

Sachin Mayi
Share-A-Pet
Executive Director
For more information:
info@shareapet.org
954 630-8763