New directions?

My mind has been churning the last few days with the question, "Art or Rats?" I visualize being in my studio, surrounded by paint and canvases with splashes of color. I think of my unused art supplies...pastels, markers, fabrics...and dream of projects I'd like to do. But I'm usually doing my dreaming with a rat in my lap, lapping medication off my finger. Then I try to imagine my house without rats and it seems empty, dead. "So I can have a few as pets," I tell myself. Then I imagine the calls I'll get from the humane society about the rats that will be put to sleep if I don't take them or will have to live closed in cages alone...without human companionship. How to live with that? My reading stack, since vacation started, has been largely business-related: Executive EQ, Parliamentary Procedure, books on running nonprofits and boards. I have been plowing through, a chapter here and there of each...it's been hard work because I don't find business very interesting. Today, though, I found myself in the library in front of the self-help section. Volunteers and board members have intimated that I may just have a problem getting along with people, so I was looking for a book to help. Emotional Awareness caught my eye. Then How to Win Friends & Influence People. Then a big yellow book, on how to choose a career based on your personality type, jumped into focus. I've done these tests before so was able to quickly scan to find my personality type: Introverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving. "Likely to be animal lovers... and need to have personal space." These are the two very conflicting qualities I have discovered in running The Rat Retreat. "ISFPs are action-oriented individuals." They are "doers." I want to help these rats and I'm very serious about it and dedicated to it. I cannot do as much for them without the help of others, but "ISFPs have no desire to lead or control others," wherein lies the problem. Volunteers expect leadership. Part of my nature and part of the thing that feeds my creativity is relaxing. I picked up The Art of Doing Nothing with the hope of re-learning that skill. Having so many people around, wanting to talk to me, makes it difficult. As I sat in the library pondering my dilemma, I saw another book Finding Meaning In The Second Half of Life. Earlier I had picked up one on learning to be a senior citizen. I am only 55, but am permanently disabled, with a host of diseases and, for all intents and purposes, I am retired. Remaining peaceful, relaxed and low-key helps me to stay healthy enough to keep taking care of rats and doing art. "Maybe that is the key," I told myself, "to behave like a retiree." I started imagining a new kind of Rat Retreat. What if we had members, who paid a fee, were allowed to adopt so many rats per year as part of their membership, and were required to volunteer so many hours per year? After all, if The Rat Retreat isn't here, they will have to get rescued rats from other states, unless they happen to hit the humane society at the right time. And wouldn't people who care about rats, want to know they have a good place to live rather than being put to sleep? And wouldn't they want to help? The answer to those questions might solve my dilemma.