C=MD

C=MD.

One of the nurses at Detox today was discussing a client, an alcoholic, whom failed his bar exam, his wife is now divorcing him, and he is living back at home with his parents. His advice to him was: "TAKE IT AGAIN" Get off the pity boat, open the books again, and try again. The nurse gave him this quote: "C=MD". In medical school, all you need is a C to pass. [The validity of this is beyond me, I dont care enough to find out if it this is true or not].

This quick converation that is still occuring as I type this got me to thinking the resiliency levels that people have. Let me compare two clients. One is homeless, has been for a majority part of his life. He is in and out of detox the same way you and I are in and out of Publix. If you see him on the streets, you probably wouldnt even notice him because in your eyes, he is just another homeless man. Even now as I type this, one of the nurses was looking for his chart [that is sitting next to me, meaning, I should be working instead but when inspiration calls, I write]. Anyways, he is lookin for his chart and what comes out of his mouth? "OH Him again, let me guess, he's here for alcohol?" WELL DUH. Imagine if YOU were homeless, its freezing outside, you have no place to sleep, no family, no friends, and the only thing that can keep you from the daily reminders of your crappy existence is alcohol. The average person drinks when they had a hard day at work, because its friday, because its time to celebrate.. so many reasons. This man's reason is because he does not want to think, feel, KNOW that he fucked up somewhere. Yet, he smiles. Every time I see him, he smiles and he says Please and Thank You.

The other client? I dont know his entire life story but I bet, like we all do, that we are better than the homeless people that panhandle and sleep on the streets. However, this man's resiliency was so low that failing the bar exam caused such an upheavel in his life. When he told me he failed it, my internal reaction was, "SO WHAT? Take it again!!!!" But Ms. MSW used my 60k in loans education and used cognitive behavioral therapy to try to reframe his mode of thinking.

These two men are both alcoholics. They both come from such difference socioeconomic classes, one has a family, the other doesnt. However, homeless man gets my respect. Why? Because he doesn't allow the shitty life he was given to interfere with his ability to still respect people. He smiles, he is polite, he asks how your day is going, he values the human life. Whereas other people are too self absorbed to realize anything beyond what they see in the mirror.

Im going on tangent, I realized that, but its my blog so, so what?

I guess the theme of this post is: get over yourself. We all have our shitty moments, we all have our proud moments. But regardless of how crappy you think your life is, SMILE, say PLEASE and THANK YOU and never, ever, forget to be grateful for all that you do have.