By Patrick McNerthney
In college I took an accounting class because I thought the only way to make any money was to be some kind of brilliant business person. Business people have nice houses, Teslas, spouses, pure-bred dogs, and first class plane tickets to places like Morocco and Hawaii—who wouldn’t want that? Plus they get to use acronyms and jargon with reckless abandon, which makes them sound super brilliant, even though nobody knows what the acronyms and jargon actually mean.
(Oozing acronyms here.)
The problem was, I found accounting as interesting as dirt. Actually, substantially less interesting—dirt has bugs and worms crawling through it. Accounting on the other hand,, is riddled with a bunch of meaningless numbers that are supposed to magically align but never do.
So I went the route of every business major’s fallback: economics. Except by week five the professor stopped telling interesting anecdotes about his personal life and the lives of his cronies, and dove straight into charts and graphs and parabolas that all seemed to end with: “but, you know,” (finger wagging) “this is still kind of a guess.”
Ugh. What a mess. Of course the problem really wasn’t accounting or economics or professors obsessed with tenure. The problem was I wasn’t interested in any of it.
(“See this red part? It doesn’t mean anything, but that too, is still kind of a guess.”)
Decades later, here I am, an ink-stained, curmudgeonly writer who occasionally yells at the Internet. Why? Because it’s the only thing I’m genuinely interested in.
And that my friends, is the point! If people are genuinely interested, they’ll discover that the work involved in improvement—the labor of learning, the energy drain that happens when humans fire up their synapses—is of course difficult, but no longer a CHORE. It’s a reflection of pride, of passion, ultimately resulting in professionalism.
So the question for you as the caregiver of your residents or loved ones is, how interested are you in improving what you do? We all need to do our best. And even though your efforts are likely rarely championed by others, we know your work MATTERS (way more than a business person’s, thank you very much.)
Fine Art Miracles (FAM) has a way for you to improve your care that’s not at all taxing. They offer Art Therapy, Drumming Exercise Music Therapy, ART2Go packages (and so much more) that help the elderly, children with challenges, and anyone needing assistance with life’s daily tasks. FAM can help you help them find what they’re missing: confidence, self-worth, a sense of mastery, relevance to the outside world, and pride. In other words, FAM helps your residents or loved ones know they MATTER.
Which happens to be the perfect antidote to the anxiety and depression they feel from being socially isolated.
So whaddya think? How interested are you in honing your care? Are you willing to improve? Here’s an idea: drop FAM a note or give them a call to learn more. They’re happy to help.
So, if you couldn’t tell, one of my favorite pastimes is poking fun at those swanky business folks I could never become. They’re really not a bad bunch, and I do envy their trips to Hawaii. But I’m really glad I don’t have to listen to their acronyms and jargon anymore—deciphering their meaning was murder!
