Not Making a Difference
Today there is a fascination near obsession to making a difference.
Making a difference at work or at home, wherever. This is particularly expleted in the helping professions and charity sector. Who is helping who in the helping professions? Sometimes the people helping the disadvantaged appear to be more out of touch with their own issues than the disadvantaged they are helping. The charity sector
is a raging business orientated environment where services are funded short term on the whim of the funding criteria of the day. Services on the cheap. The touchy feely side of the charity world can seem lost in the present funding environment. But then the helping professions can make a difference: there is an intention to help people in their lives and often a success rather other professions where money is the aim.
Perhaps not making a difference is an idea to keep us well behaved, or to target the genuinely nasty people in the world. Is this necessary? Most people are averagely well behaved, decent, flawed individuals trying to move forward with their lives without hurting anybody too much.
Of course we all need to be recognised and loved by those close to us. To not be recognised for who we are can cause mental health issues, and is a way of driving humans mad as Winnicott knows.
Yet in this narcissistic age of the thrusting individual has it gone too far?
Not making a difference would be to focus inwardly not outwardly. To admit that whatever difference we make might not be that big. How can we be happy with this? Whatever we do it does not seem reasonable to think of ourselves as mere speck of dirt in the universe, or being insignificant in the cosmos. This is existentially and emotionally challenging. It needs thought, down time, reflection, stillness to process and digest.
None of these practices is fashionable to day. The 21st Century so far is a century of avoidance and altered states. Reality is too mundane, unexciting and difficult. Avoiding avoidance would challenge the Big I Am. Yet we all have to live through the minutiae of our lives minutes, hours and years. So is it not surprising we are a little self-obsessed?
But making a difference?
Not making a difference
All rights reserved
Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only.
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique. Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2014