{"id":165,"date":"2016-12-07T15:41:07","date_gmt":"2016-12-07T15:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/?p=165"},"modified":"2016-12-07T15:41:07","modified_gmt":"2016-12-07T15:41:07","slug":"andthatswhyyoureimportant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/?p=165","title":{"rendered":"#AndThatsWhyYoureImportant"},"content":{"rendered":"

#AndThatsWhyYoureImportant is trending today. There are all kinds of things I can write that are uplifting, things I believe about how everyone is important, my belief that I need to Love Everybody and Make \u2018em Feel Good About Themselves, and unconditional love. I could put in the quote from the West Wing about the man who falls in a hole and how I will always jump om that hole with you, no matter how long it\u2019s been or what has passed under a burned bridge.<\/p>\n

Instead, I will tell you what I do at my part-time job.<\/p>\n

I work at a group home for developmentally disabled adults part-time. I do this for a number of reasons, some financial, some personal and some because MY BACK UP PLANS HAVE BACK UP PLANS (proof that your children eventually do know you well) but a big part of it is that I want to have a job that does some good. Since we gotta earn, might as well earn in a way that makes someone else\u2019s life better.<\/p>\n

We have a resident who is on hospice care. She\u2019s non-verbal, can no longer walk and her sight and hearing are poor. She stays in bed most of the time as we work to keep her comfortable. Every time, when I come into work, I go into her room, check on her, and if she\u2019s awake, I hold her hand. She grabs on tight and shakes her hands in the air, waving her hand around and sometimes \u201csinging\u201d as she does so.<\/p>\n

When she could walk, she would dance by stomping her feet, waving her hands in the air and \u201csinging\u201d. Sometimes, when I do a sleeping shift, if I come in and she\u2019s agitated, I\u2019ll go into her room and hold her hand until she either calms down or her pain meds take effect and she goes to sleep.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a little thing to me. Just 5 \u2013 10 minutes on a normal shift or up at 30 minutes on an overnight sleep shift. I\u2019m just holding her hand and being there, and sometimes I put in a CD for her to listen to and sing along in my VERY deep voice (which has a tonne of bass in it) and she can feel the vibrations.<\/p>\n

Guess what? You can do something like this too. Open a door for someone, pay it forward at the coffee shop, call a friend whose facebook posts make them sound sad or lonely, help a co-worker, bring a glass of water to someone who can\u2019t get away from their desk, have extra cough drops in your pocket, text someone you haven\u2019t heard from in a while and ask them how they are doing, send a joke to someone you care about, forgive everyone, pick up that trash someone accidentally dropped and throw it away, give someone in your neighborhood cookies, whatever. You can do a little thing to make it better for everyone.<\/p>\n

SO many people on my feed are upset about political things, social things, economic things\u2026I get it. I do. But if you can\u2019t change the macro, change the micro. Why are you important? Because every day is another chance to make things better.<\/p>\n

Much love to friends old and new, and while it\u2019s a clich\u00e9, you CAN be the change you want to see in the world.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

#AndThatsWhyYoureImportant is trending today. There are all kinds of things I can write that are uplifting, things I believe about how everyone is important, my belief that I need to Love Everybody and Make \u2018em Feel Good About Themselves, and unconditional love. I could put in the quote from the West Wing about the man […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":166,"href":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions\/166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}