I love children. A lot! I often cannot stand them crying in church. Intentionally, I would show up at Mass with spare jotter sheets and pen/pencils. Once a child next to me starts to cry, I offer them a sheet and a pen to get them distracted. It works! Well, it didn’t work a few times, because children are often easily distracted. Some would quickly abandon the “indescribable” things they’re scribbling or drawing, like one drops a heated aluminum pot, at the sound of a biscuit wrap, or another non-edible distraction.
Have you taken a look at the writing books of children in nursery and kindergarten school stages? Each 2D sheet or slate has (coloured) lines that provide a guide for children learning how to draw the alphabet. The teacher makes a standard outline of the English Alphabet and the children are expected to duplicate those letters on their own. The outcomes are often very funny. What you get is usually far from perfect.
Consider how the expected versus the actual output can be applied to how we see life, our work. Also, consider that each student’s output will vary. All are on a journey to master handwriting, and so the teacher removes the cloak of perfection and treats every child with compassion like he/she would have been treated in his/her time.
Every time the earth completes a revolution, we find people making new resolutions. “New year; new me!” that’s what we often say or think. While no one ought to remain static in these ever-changing times, we can learn to look towards the new, without overlooking the past.
The new year is like a 2D writing sheet or slate, an insignia that we are all on a journey and that we will not mirror the perfection of the standard outline overnight.
Sometimes, a new year is a call to get better, to continue, to finish what we have started by either taking a break to refresh and find new perspectives or seeking ways to accelerate improvement. Other times, it is simply looking back at what’s working and going ahead to sustain it.
Either way, we need to begin again with compassion. Compassion for ourselves and for others: patients, colleagues, and communities that we serve in various capacities.
Think of it this way: the last time you were hard on yourself for mistakes deliberately made, unconsciously made, or exacerbated by a pandemic, did being hard really solve the problem? Did the “handwriting” or craft or professional expertise improve through that approach?
There are a thousand and one resolutions out there. Some want to lose 10kg in a few days. The gym facilities have recorded skyrocketing subscriptions from people who may not make it past the first two weeks of January because they didn’t offer themselves the kindness to differentiate what was realistic, healthy, and refreshing for their progress. Does this not also apply, sometimes, to how we make professional goals?
This is how to rethink compassionate care: it is a call to progress, not perfection. Progress requires a childlike attitude: free-spiritedness, the ability to try again, often depending on the encouragement of community, trust that it can only get better, happiness in every forward step made and full presence in making and relishing with memories.
Begin again. Write alphabet by alphabet, the new story that aligns with your life. This time, write more compassionately.
Happy New Year!
Chidindu Mmadu-Okoli
Do me a favour? Share this newsletter with your friends and colleagues.