The Grab Bag Empire: The Heart of Service

We as humans are gifted with a heart at birth.  A good heart is one that beats on time, pumps blood and serves as a dutiful muscle to the person whom it is embedded.  A bad heart is one that may have trouble doing any one of those things or may just be plagued with disease.  Unfortunately, we are unable to pick the heart we receive during birth and we may or may not be gifted with a bad heart.  On the bright side, with the advancement of technology and education, surgeries were developed in order to help relieve us of these bad times by repairing our bad heart.  I do know, coming from a family with heart disease and I having heart surgery myself, that not everything can be fixed which is deeply discouraging and disheartening.

Now, what if we looked at the heart as the compassion and caring center of the human, how would the previously stated paragraph change?  Honestly, it changes drastically in the new context at hand.  I believe that people all have good in them.  We all have some amount of compassion and the ability to care, we on this earth are proof.  So if we subtract the bad heart from the equation, and everyone has a good heart (compassion and caring center), then why do i keep hearing there is a difference in the hearts of people.  Some people have the heart for art, and others medicine.  Others, such as myself have the heart of service/people.  Those hearts are ones that can take all bodily fluids, feed others, and assist with personal hygiene such as brushing teeth and showering.  Why i say that is because i have a job that deals with every one of those characteristics in great detail, and I LOVE IT!

WHAT I DO?

I work for a company that serves individuals with intellectual disabilities.  My position is listed as a DSA or a Direct Support Associate.  I work regularly with two individuals and help out with many more.  My day usually looks different every day, but usually consists helping the individuals become more independent.  It is my job to help them achieve goals through running programs, or classes if you will.  Some are learning simple colors, counting, and survival signs.  Others are learning multiplication tables, how to write paragraphs and read novels.  Either way, it is something the individual needs to help him or her become independent and less dependent on us.  There is also the CNA portion of the job, where we assist with taking someone to the bathroom, feeding them and giving them medications.  Not all of it is pretty, but all worth it.

WHY THE HEART IS IMPORTANT

The heart is very important in the service field.  You see and hear things that you shouldn’t be hearing, and sometimes you are emotionally and physically drained by the end of the day.  A heart of service is a heart that beats specifically for that reason.  It is there to keep you going, to get you through the rough days, and keep you moving and motivated through the good days.  The heart is also there to remind you why you are doing what you are doing.  So if a heart for medicine walks into this job, i can guarantee that his heart would be like  “We are going to get the hell out of here.  Lets go look at a chemistry book.”, just for the remind of what it wants.  You have to want this job.  You have to do it because you love it.  You are not able to have a bad heart in this job.  A surgery cannot take away the lack of service qualities in you, but it might add the qualities.  I have seen people go through a period where they were very unsure that the job i have is for them.  However, as the time progressed, surgery or love started pushing its way into their heart, changing it to one day, a heart of service.  It was a complete transformation, but the bad heart or old heart had to be discarded and mending and tweaking needed to take place.

So why is this all relevant?  This field is always looking for people with hearts of service; People who have unending compassion for disabled individuals.  Think your interested, then take a chance.  Not quite sure?  Remember that there is no such thing as a bad heart when dealing with a compassion and caring center.  Maybe all you need is a trial run in the job.  Maybe you know for sure you are just not cut out for it.  Remember though, surgery is always an option but a bit of a risk.  Take the plunge and your life may be changed forever.  I have learned much more from these people than i have taught them, and i am forever thankful.  You might not be able to choose the actual heart you are gifted with at birth, but you can choose the dream your heart wants to follow.

 

The Grab Bag Empire: The “Silent” Challenge

I happened to be reading my daily dose of blocs and I happened to drop in on one that asked its readers to a writing challenge. Granted I was very skeptical of whatnthis challenge could entail, I read on and found myself quite intrigued! The challenge was to use silence in some way and write about it, whether it be you are writing a story where a characters voice is silent or you are simply using silence as to think of a new idea for a blog. I decided to do something much simpler. I was going to see how long I was able to stay completely silent, using no voice or any shred of electronics. I liked the challenge and welcomed it and was happy to give his writing challenge a try. So here are the results.

I decided to start the challenge the moment I got into my car at 3pm when I knew most of my distractions and possible using of my voice would be done. I buckled myself in and hit the road. I had to catch myself when I went to turn on the radio right away and had to consciously remind myself every minute of the challenge I was doing. I finally reached my apartment which seemed like the longest and quietest ride ever and saw some people that I knew standing outside. I purposely took forever to get out of the car so I wouldn’t have to converse with them to ruin the challenge. It was now 3:15pm and I just walked through my door while still being completely silent. I got my cleaning bug at that moment and decided to deep clean my apartment. Once I got into cleaning clothes and hooked my phone up to the speakers and let the good ol’ country voices fill the apartment. Listening to music then made me belt out the lyrics and dance around the apartment. Crud. It was then 3:25 when I broke the challenge. 25 minutes of staying silent was quite a feat except I had to constantly think about it. I wanted to embrace the fact that I was going to be silent and welcomed the time to think. Thinking I did, but only about being silent and nothing else. Interesting indeed!

Doing this challenge was not only kind of fun but it was very interesting. We think that we welcome silence, however most of us don’t realize how hard it actually is to BE silent and not have to think about it.

How about you? Can you beat 25 minutes of being totally silent and listening to no music or television? This also includes the 6 second vines as well!

Read where this post started by this link: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/the-sound-of-silence/

The Grab Bag Empire: A New Beginning

A new beginning can mean a lot of things to many people.  It can mean a new outlook on life, a new diet, a change in wardrobe, even a new place of residence.  To me, a new beginning means all of those things emcompassed into one.  If you know me as a person, i tend to love fashion, i love changing my outlook on life, i have tried many diets, and even have changed my place of residence quite a few times.  This blog is going to be a  grab bag of many different things depending on the day, and what happens to be going on in the world.  You could have the pleasure of hearing about my observations, opinions and even the informative side of me.  With that being said, i want to welcome you all to “The Grab Bag Empire”, a blog about anything and everything.  This blog is going to serve as my new beginning to me, you and the entire world.

So enjoy and read on!