Priorities vs. Choices

Writing an eulogy for my dad’s funeral this summer, I reflected on the totality of my life with him to distil the one thing I have with me from him forever.

It was a task indeed; 40 plus years into a few lines. I pondered on my days growing up, holidays, schooling, living in different continents, even as I married man and now as a father myself.

Firstly, I thanked God for the privilege of having a father in my life as in today’s world many have neither their biological nor any form of father figure in their lives. I appreciated the time, joys, fun, scolding, advice and instructions he gave in his lifetime.

Distinctly, one thread that ran through my upbringing was his question, reminder, advice or call it the “still small voice” asking if what I was to engage in was the “priority”.

This question was and remains a beacon for my travels in life as the nugget of gold deposited by my dad helping me navigate the decisions I make. Yes I have made colossal deviations and errors from what seemed the obvious priority but to err is human and I continue to learn and fine tune my perspective and my process of evaluating the order and importance which form my priorities.

We often hear about life is about the choices we make but I strongly believe if the compass of priority is disengaged or dysfunctional, the choices are bound to arrive at the wrong destination.

Today’s world of the fast lane, instant gratification and maximum exposure we owe the generations to come tuition on priorities of life. We have so much being spewed out on the immediate, the popular and the self-satisfying but little about sacrifice, contentment and selflessness so a pinch of life’s real priorities will surely help ground the future generations to theirs and our benefit.

Each day I remind my children that priority must have definition in them so they can enjoy life to the fullest in the right perspective with Jesus at the core. I hope and pray just as my dad gave this to me they will receive it wholeheartedly for their travel in life.

 

“We had more in common than I thought we did. You were my priority. You were your priority.”
― Kate McGahan

 

“Life is short. Focus on what really matters most; you should change your priorities over time.”
― Roy T. Bennett

 

“When we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives. Our love of the Lord will govern the claims for our affection, the demands on our time, the interests we pursue, and the order of our priorities.”
― Ezra Taft Benson

Nightmares, shock and horrors!

Damn, I don’t believe it, I can’t imagine this, God how can this be happening to me, oh no!!!!!

These like the other exclamations arrive when the proverbial hits the fan and the feeling of bewilderment overcomes one’s mind. The sense of the most dreaded occurring and one watches it unfold with you at the centre of the unimaginable.

When nightfall appears and daylight seems a mirage, butterflies in the stomach becoming spiders and other creepy crawlies.

Phew!

All journeys of life have them; arguably without them one hasn’t lived for in this life we will have challenges – great and small, short and long, shallow and deep.

Being there can be very daunting but also as the saying goes “when there is life there is hope”. Hope for daylight, for a change, to make amends, to start afresh, to love again, to build and to live.

Indeed irrespective of the dimensions presented, it’s our composition that really matters; our character, level of resilience and support network that determine the impact felt and recovery we achieve.

I often spell out my motto for Wellness as “Build Resilience not Resistance”. This for me puts paid to the Why me questions for starters, determines to make lemonade and top it with a new masterpiece for tomorrow. Rome was not built in a day comes to mind so the crucial word is Build! For it may take a moment, day, months or even years.

As today people go around with their perceptions of the scary, ghostly or morbid, make a point in your life to jettison the Nightmares, shock and horrors and move on without their chains.

Let the past stay firmly in the past, live productively in the present then plan and hope for a better future.

Leader – Ship

A significant part of the last 20 years have been in varied roles where I had opportunity to lead or support in leading. These exposed me to characters and circumstances of all sorts which haven’t all been pleasant or rewarding

One of the key features learnt in this period was the concept of sacrifice and its’ very wholesome dimensions. The length one must go to make things happen, the depth to which one has to descend to reach the crux of some plaguing issue and the breadth of robustness one has to adopt to gain inclusion and integration.

These journeys haven’t always been plain sailing as one can imagine but just as the proof is in the eating, the thrill often is in the adventure and the adrenaline rollercoasters which ensue.

Leading gave the avenue to explore, be intuitive, visionary and nurture taking responsibility for others. It promoted good communication, adaptability, accountability and restraint (by a huge dollop of self-control). Ultimately it engendered in me the ability to view things more strategically, holistically and with a kaleidoscope perspective.

These experiences flew in the face of assumptions that leaders are born because I never saw myself as a leader but a supporter/implementer. But with every opportunity to lead I found that as I embraced it, I found growth, capacity which translated to ability and competence.

Thankfully, I had some brilliant inspiration; Angela, Russell, Shok, Sarah, books, journals, articles and many TV shows that provided the substrate and exemplified the leader I wanted to be. Their input, guidance and support went a long way to aiding me take on the challenge of leadership

Significantly, they taught and demonstrated that Leadership should always be about the ship and not the Leader (literally putting the cart before the horse). It was more to do with the “direction” of travel, the “cargo” it carries and the “crew” ensuring all is well. With this nugget of gold I found functioning in leadership was always an overall joy.

Sadly, the egoistic and self-centeredness projected by some “mentors” during my travels in leadership was most staggering. These have set for me the red lines and pitfalls to watch for so as not to become the Leader without a ship.

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The Cart before the Horse

TCI Foundation

Suffering and smiling…….

Culled from a popular song by the renowned Afrobeats artist Fela Anikulapo Kuti, it captures my summary sentiment and often the prism with which is see mental health in our day.

I purposely decided to opine my views today, one day after the celebration of World Mental Health Day, firstly to prolong the discuss of the issues plaguing this fundamental aspect of healthcare as a whole. But also to keep it in our full view because our world is now a sphere infected with instant gratification and momentary amnesia possibly due to information overload and self-centeredness.

To say there is suffering with mental health around our world is obviously understating this concern which in reality is of epic proportion. Profoundly evident across the “developed” world is this epidemic; from the alarming rates of self-harm in children to significant levels of suicide in middle aged men and dementia in older adults mixed with a cocktail of the increasing normalisation of illicit drug and substance misuse.

More tragic is the state of affairs in most developing countries where at best shackles, whips and enslavement are the remedies employed to manage mental health with bloodletting, starvation and murder firmly at the other end of the spectrum of their patient care.

Smiling the expression of a happy emotion has come to be the façade that covers the rot within, the caricature that is often used to represent the lunatic or the masks that disguises the deep and growing pain of mind. Smiling also serves as the clinching element of the smoke and mirrors and the sideshow to distract from the depreciating scaffold of a human persona. But whichever way you perceive this, the overwhelming stigma deep at its roots and abstractness of its presentation has made mental health the modern leprosy of our age and the silent killer with a smile.

Febrile in this landscape are depression; the emotion biologically inherent summing up the feelings of sadness, disappointment or loss and anxiety; natural instinct of excitement or prior to fight or flight. Both have taken such an exacerbated toll on humanity due to prevalent social, economic and environmental issues further heightened by pressures to succeed ostentatiously and social media for FOMO.

Ironic in this contortion is the fact that around the world we are decriminalising/legalising cannabis alloyed with huge investment for its production without parallel or comparative investment by governments or private entities in the management of the allied issues that predispose drug use and the negative impact of these illicit drugs be that as it may, on the minority.

Mental health is continually described as the Cinderella service in the healthcare system but the story always ended with her meeting the prince which seems to be the hallucination in mental healthcare delivery.

Yesterday served as a reminder to our world that as mental health illnesses affect 1 in 6 persons if not comprehensively addressed, we risk the possibility of our world becoming a global asylum where we are discharged when we die.

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Suffering and smiling de Marco Lapenna