Our culture and the entertainment industry idolize those who are skilled at drawing attention to themselves. Creating “buzz” for oneself appears to be the popular activity while engaged in song, performing upon the stage or having a television or internet presence. We celebrate youth, vitality, high energy and lots of noisy activity.
Our media and paparazzi do not make it a practice of camping out on the doorstep or hovering in a low flying helicopter over the homes or businesses of those whose mission is the care of others who are ill or in need. No Lady GaGa’s, Katy Perry, Snooky or Tea Party members demanding attention or face time among the caregiving community or even hanging out there.
There are multitudes of people needing 24 hour a day care and none of them are stirring up any attention about themselves. They suffer and struggle through their days mostly in the shadows and in silence. They are victims of the “Three Is” (invisible, indoors or institutionalized in nursing homes).
Those most in need of a caregiver tend to be aged, suffering from chronic or terminal illness or otherwise incapacitated. No sensationalism or provocative activity going on with citizens in this category. Mostly just ordinary and common folks who have found themselves at a junction that may well turn out to be a defining moment for them in their life going forward. They are debilitated in a way physically or mentally that demands the intervention of nursing care, a CNA or a caregiver. Unable to help and care for themselves as they used to be able to do.
Caregiving compels you to take your eyes off of the daily news and entertainment headlines and personalities and direct your attention upon the victims of those Three Is. Without realizing it, over time you migrate away from a position of being self-absorbed. You migrate towards providing first for the physical and psychological needs of your patient or family member.
Caregiving teaches you to live your life in a way you have never lived it before. You start out from a place of selfishness, of you first, of how come I got picked? As you emerse yourself in the care of another, the place in which you begin to inhabit and act from is a place of selflessness.
There comes a price that you must pay for making a personal transition such as this and that is that you will loose a few years off the back end of your life. Your life will be somewhat foreshortened because of the physical and emotional intensity that you have been subjected to. After all is said and done and your work has been completed, you will have undergone a personal enrichment that you would not have experienced anywhere else. Call it transcendent growth.
Neither society, nor our colleges, nor our culture prepares you for this purpose.
It is time for a change.
Jeff Dodson
May 13th 2011
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