Take care of yourself

You have to take care of yourself because you cannot take care of anybody else, or even yourself, if you let yourself hit the wall.

I was invited to attend a Nurses' Week event at a local hospital and multiple speakers spoke to that message.

A few days earlier, a friend emailed me a link to this article Stop the “If Only This Would Happen” Game Now

When I get pummeled by several, intersecting messages I take that as a sign that it is something worth blogging about. 

The "new normal" killed the "old normal" and the "old-normal" isn't coming back

Hospitals are in a staffing and revenue death-spiral. If you, as an employee, don't take care of yourself then the system will suck you to the bottom of the sea as surely as the Titanic's suction did to swimmers.

If you are a supervisor, your management du jour will strip-mine your good-will, credibility and honor to meet their short-term objectives.

If you buy a new tractor you will be paying $2000 a year for as long as you own that tractor for software updates. No pay. No start.

A parenting analogy

One of the things the wise Mrs ERJ figured out early in our parenting was that attempting to be a "reasonable" parent meant that when you hit the end-of-the-rope it was impossible to temper actions with reason. It was all gone. The cup was empty.

Better to be more assertive early in the escalation and never get pushed over the edge. The difference as seen from the child's perspective is microscopic but it is huge from the parent's side of the interactions. Sometimes a little bit of theatrics is warranted. You can LOOK like you are at the end-of-your-rope without actually being dangerously angry.

Learn to say "NO" so you can sometimes say "Yes"

It used to be an article of faith that if you started to feed birds then it was a death-sentence for those birds if you stopped feeding them. I am sure Mrs Grundy was well intentioned and thought that her scare message would motivate bird-lovers to keep feeding the birds, but it was almost total B.S.

In the wild, the offerings of food are an endless kaleidoscope depending on season, rain, temperature. Food sources would spring up in full bounty only to disappear within days or weeks. And the birds didn't starve. They simply moved on to the other sources of food.

People come to you with their problems like birds come to a back-yard feeder. They come because they know that access to resources is a "sure thing". They don't come because "There are no other resources out there". They come because of habit and comfort and certainty.

If providing those resources (time, talent, money, physical goods, a listening ear...) start to drag you down, you CAN tell them "No." and take care of yourself. And to be honest, forcing them to find other sources of resources while they still have some mental flexibility will make them stronger. It will help them grow their network.

It is infinitely preferable that you and your immediate family remain strong and vital rather than have you hit-the-wall. It is preferable that those who lean on you have alternate sources of resources because we are all getting older and stuff happens.

Ironically, Mrs Grundy's admonition about not-stopping probably prevented many people from feeding the birds. They never said "Yes" because an authority told them that once they said "Yes" the lost the option of ever saying "No".