A Day Well Spent
How do you measure your day? For example, what’s a good day for you and what does that ‘good’ look like?. Maybe, a good day for you is one where you get to spend a lot of quality time with your friends and family. Maybe it’s a day when you are free to totally immerse yourself in a hobby, like, painting, practising guitar, or exploring the rugged terrain of Slieve Donard. Perhaps a good day for you is spent at home doing absolutely nothing or out and about at Rushmere spending a fortune. A good day for some is one where they stay sober, or manage to get themselves out of bed and showered or muster enough motivation to walk their dog or clean the house. Small wins.
Many people spend quite a lot of time living in a prism of false goodness. Engaging in activities that they believe to be worthwhile, but are in reality deeply unfulfilling. Some people spend years wandering this netherworld. Looking for happiness in all the wrong places. We’ve all been there. Led astray by our egos in the search for external gratification. Today would be good if I was flying to New York, had a better job, or a big fat cheque from the bookies. Blinded by the lights.
When you lay your head down at night, perhaps you could begin to evaluate the efficacy of your daily output by asking, how many people did I help today? Giving to others is one of the Five ways to Wellbeing. If you’re fortunate enough to be a support worker, health practictioner, carer, teacher or mentor then the answer might be 10….20 maybe. If your profession is less altruistic by nature, this shouldn’t hinder you from having a positive impact on someone’s life. Helping someone is not necessarily about performing CPR or providing suicide intervention. It could simply be a matter of listening with empathy. Sharing a joke. Offering advice. Giving someone a nice compliment, or doing someone a favour. In which case there are countless opportunities for everyone to help someone less fortunate every single day.
If you are struggling yourself at present, then maybe that someone you help today is you. Help yourself by practising self- care. Do something for yourself that is therapeutic, nourishing and healing. Surely that would represent a good day.
A short story to finish. I recently mentored and nominated an adult learner for the OCNNI Learner of the Year awards. This person has chronic MH issues and struggles to leave the house on a bad day. In June past at a very plush event in Belfast in front of about 400 people including her family, she won her own category and the overall Learner of the Year award. She was in complete shock and you just couldn’t take the smile off her face. I have won a few football awards myself in the past, and it was always a loving feeling, but watching her win was different. More powerful. Better.
That wasn’t just a good day. It was a great one
