Tag Archives: growth

When the Best You Can Do Is the Best You Can Do

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Caregivers come in all varieties. Industry managers to homebodies, we are a very diverse group. I like to think that this is due to common natural aging processes that prompt a need for care. Old age and infirmity do not discriminate.

One of our common traits is our dedication to tasks at hand. Yes, we despair at times and need some help for ourselves, but we regularly get back up on that horse and return to our avocation. 

We persevere.

Reality Bites

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A common human experience is frustration with the way things are and the way we would like them to be. Similar to many political discussions these days, learning to work the problems and devise attainable solutions is much more useful than standing in the middle of the floor and crying about how we are not getting our way in life.

Growing up can be tough at times, but as we mature (hopefully), we find acceptance of reality to be a feature of being human. We aspire to greater accomplishments, yet accept that our dreams and plans are not always supported.

Being a grownup is tough.

Compromise Sounds Like

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Accepting circumstances as they are is a superpower. Being able to unplug from the cascading emotions brought on by frustration is empowering. I highly recommend the practice.

Being a calm eye of the storm can, however, be misinterpreted as apathy to the untrained eye. 

There are still times when I feel like I am leaving a situation only half completed. Some of this guilt I think comes from the high expectations I have for myself. I should not be the one falling apart. I should be the one making the sensible decisions, I should, I should…

The lesson eventually learned is that with most caregiving situations, there is not a resounding success but a whimpering compromise that resolves the situation. Our high personal standards take the hit, but the reality is that our best effort is going to have to be enough.

Not defeat but a nod to our adversary, truth. The truth of our situation wins on its own terms, always. We will have the occasional success (Dad actually handed over his car keys without a fight!), but we manage the rest of the defeats with style and humility.

Being Our Best

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As warriors in these conflicts, I think we often struggle with ourselves as much as our caregiving situations. 

We must.

We have to be strong for others. Since the path to those strengths is not clearly defined, we blaze a trail that is unique to us and our situation.

Cutting ourselves some slack as we meet these challenges becomes essential. When we have done all we can with the tools and resources available to us, it is enough.

Forgive. It is the best that we can do.

“Believe in yourself. You are braver than you think, more talented than you know, and capable of more than you imagine.”
― Roy T. Bennett

People Make Our World

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I think most of us will agree that the basis of caregiving is that it is about people. The ones we care for, the ones we interact with while providing help, and not the least of which, trying really hard to care for ourselves. People make our world.

A great many people have lately been producing (rather loudly) commentary that has not made us feel very comfortable. No matter where your views lie along the political spectrum, there has likely been someone telling you were wrong, and you must change.

I am forever an optimist. Not that everything is always rosy, but I try very hard to not dwell on negatives. I like to find the good, wherever and whenever it exists.

Spoiler alert!

While these are difficult times, discovering that much of our human experience has not been diminished by this current incivility has been heartening. A great many people continue to be the people we have always known. Maybe it is because the folks in the heartland of this country do not concern themselves with the abstracts of labels and other heady debates. The media just likes to portray a few exceptions with bullhorns as commonplace. I am happy to report that they are still just exceptions.

Rediscovering People

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Last summer I had the wonderful need to travel across the country, though I did not realize the gifts such a journey had to offer at the time.

Time was not a factor, so I decided to create an adventure and travel by rail. I have never done this before, and being of a disposition lately where exploration of new experiences sounds like a good idea most of the time, I signed on for an Amtrak ride.

The ride became a connection with the people that political pundits say no longer exist. I am overjoyed to report that the personalities that most all of us grew up with still exist in abundance across the United States.

A Pandemic Shadow

The remnants of COVID restrictions were still in the process of being lifted as I traveled. After years of closure, the dining car was open once again – a big event in Amtrak circles apparently. In listening to the language of the staff, there was still much uncertainty of being near one another without the mandated measures to separate us.

Who would have thought that sitting down to a meal could involve such uncertainty? We were learning, however.

With everyone being reintroduced to one another after so much fear and anxiety, the reluctance was understandable. In a fashion typical of recent history, the railroad began mandating behavior, or at the very least, strongly suggesting we comply.

The issue? We needed to sit with strangers if we wished to eat in the dining car.

I cannot say that this was a particularly disagreeable mandate.

Next thing I knew, I was chatting over meals with America. A middle-aged mother and her kids on their first adventure by rail, a retired aerospace engineer who has been traveling the country by rail for years, even a few rookie solo travelers like me.

The best part about it was that even with the uneasiness of pandemic still lurking in the background, it all started to feel “normal”. You remember normal, right? When the commonplace is just that.

Takeaways

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From this adventure, I found reassurance.

Know that we are still good people. Media has amplified a horrible theme that is not true of most of us. We have been through much, but we are not changed all that much. We retain the same traits and decency that we used to take for granted.

Like returning (or recovering) from caregiving, we may be changed but much of the world remains the same. There is a special assurance in the knowledge that people are still just people. Our essence as people remains strengthened and unchanged by events.

I hope this message of hope reassures you that the same motivations that brought you into care for others remain a stable foundation to build upon as we venture into the changed world in which we find ourselves.

Knowing that decent people still are still plentiful sure helps.

“Doubt makes a man decent.”
― Harry Crews

Dying of Embarrassment

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Is it possible that some of the angst we see in the media these days are people who went with the favored political winds a few years ago and now are facing up to the idea that they picked the wrong horse? With all the emotional gusto of a preadolescent person decrying the trauma of a social gaff, are people dying of embarrassment?

Of note in recent years has been a general decline in civilities among people, including a concerning lack of character and integrity of leaders.

Empathy Abuse

A personality trait that I have come to regard as a two-edged blade is empathy. That ability to put oneself in the shoes of another to better understand them and their actions.

embarrassed person being bullied by a man in white top
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Empathy is a “soft skill” that requires a certain amount of personal vulnerability to access successfully. In our caregiving mode, this ability to relate to the human needs of another is often what brought us to this situation. We relate to them on a personal level, and we seek to respect and understand them during difficult times.

With bullying behaviors that have become so much more common in recent years, the bullies seemed to have been on the hunt for more people to push their demands of conformity. Political correctness on steroids.

Empathy can easily be mistaken for weakness because the empathic individual exhibits natural helpful tendencies. Empathic people are not noted for being confrontational and tend to try to make the other person happy by relating (adopting) the other’s perspective.

The bullies abuse this helpfulness characteristic, and the empathic individuals are stuck paying the emotional bill for that abuse.

Feeling Stuck

Sensitivity to others carries can carry with it a duty to serve them as well. Empathic individuals do not wish to betray others, even when bullied. Emotional abuse, whether in the context of a personal relationship (i.e., family, spouses) or a less intimate arrangement, can often be difficult to disentangle oneself from. The abusers know of this reluctance to discontinue a destructive relationship and play on it to maintain a status quo.

Often lacking a motivating event to do otherwise, the empathic individual tends to stay where they are. Finding a way out becomes a struggle.

In much the same way as when we find ourselves up against the wall in caregiving, we do what the situation calls for, not what we prefer to do. One will not die of embarrassment if you change your response to a situation but making such a change happen is difficult.

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Resilience

Tough decisions make resilient people. We all have the capacity to stand up on our own, but as with most important things in life, we also calculate the cost. Once we are willing to pay what is needed, the courage to carry on just naturally happens.

Moral decisions to not abuse ourselves or others is taking hold. The feelings of guilt are legitimate for many and belong to them. We can, however, still hold the door open for them. Forgiveness and gratitude work wonders at allowing people to mend broken relationships. Trust is a more difficult challenge and will take considerably more work and time.

Still, we must start somewhere and now is always a good time to begin.

“Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough.”
― Alain de Botton

Providing Sense

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With all the tomfoolery being presented expanded upon in society these days, providing some sense, some feelings of safety and security, is a worthy and constructive cause. As caregivers, it is something we already know how to do well.

Language, Please

You may notice the active tense of the phrase, providing sense. If there is anything more dynamic that we learn from caregiving, it is to be proactive. Taking the wreckage of our situations and finessing them into something constructive – and active.

Caregiving, by definition, involves interceding in another’s life to guide and protect them when they are unable or unwilling to do so for themselves. It can sound heroic but what we are guiding and protecting are the fundamental aspects of another person’s life.

We make them feel safe.

Our Friend Maslow

Maslow’s hierarchy is something many of us probably encountered in a psych class in college. Abraham Maslow proposed that people have structured innate needs, the basics of which are physical (air, water, food, shelter) and safety (personal security, health). More refined personal characteristics are built upon these basic needs. As with any structure, the foundation must be sound for the structure to be sustainable.

Our role in caring for others starts at this basic level. We help people feel safe. We guard against threats and build security. We also provide for some interpersonal needs (everyone still needs hugs!), but our primary mission is to keep people safe and make sure they know it, if possible.

Society Has Glitched

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Our post-pandemic world now gives us perspective on what we have done, and reason to question what we are currently doing. If we don’t periodically stop and reflect on our own actions, we are failing ourselves and those who depend upon us.

So much of the noise coming from national conversations has the sounds of fear. Fear has been preached by numerous individuals over the course of the last few years, but the crisis has passed, we survived when others did not, and it is time to grow from the experience.

We need to provide that sense that has been missing for so long.

Others still advertise that they are our salvation and will be taking care of everyone’s needs. If they have not already done so, they are not coming.

Talk is always cheap.

The authenticity of authority is certainly questionable. Time to move on with meeting the needs of ourselves and those for whom we care.

Restoring Safety

joyful adult daughter greeting happy surprised senior mother in garden
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Our world presents us with situations in which our safety has been threatened. As Maslow indicated, if we don’t feel safe, the rest of our personal world is on shaky ground.

I can hear the doomsayers now. Taking on this task of making others (and ourselves in the process) feel secure again is too much for me. I am not enough.

For the caregivers in the crowd, I want to remind you that such insecurity has never stopped us before. We have led the charge when feeling far less than 100% confident in our abilities.

Uncertainties are us. We are courageous.

Call to Action

Let’s take charge of this situation that our national leadership has fumbled so badly (or just flat run away from). We can leave the deficiency mentality behind and separate the cons from the constructive.

We can teach confidence instead of hysteria. Align our speech and actions so that we are once again congruent.

Let’s build that security that has filtered away these past few years. We are not passengers in these life events but players in the game. We do have some control, and we certainly feel the responsibility.

Let’s provide sense.

Yes I’m seeking for someone, to help me. So that some day I will be the someone to help some other one.”
― Vignesh Karthi

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