What matters to you?
What matters to me often includes giving some context and history to my writing. For example, over a year and a half ago, I wrote a post with a somewhat similar title to today’s.
Day 133: Maybe anxiety means that something really matters to you.
As a matter of fact, I was anxious yesterday, because I was doing something that really mattered to me (and to other people, too). Yesterday, I attended a work retreat, where over one hundred doctors, nurses, social workers, medical assistants, and other dedicated employees at a major Boston teaching hospital spent the whole day together off-site, brainstorming and identifying specific ways to make patient care better.
Here’s one of the slides from the excellent opening speech at the retreat, about how much it matters to have a true patient-focus in practice.
That slide is inviting providers to shift from a focus on problems and complaints to what really and truly matters to those they serve.
Because of my life-long experiences as a patient in the medical system, moving this way — from a focus on the weaknesses of patients and the needs of providers, to a focus on the strengths and needs of those who require health care — all matters to me, very deeply.
It matters to me so much, that I overcame anxiety about speaking my mind in front of over one hundred doctors, nurses, social workers, medical assistants, and other dedicated employees, several times throughout the day.
As a matter of fact, when one of the facilitators at the retreat asked us the first audience-directed question:
What matters to you, to help us start working together today?
I was the first one, in that enormous, packed room, to raise my hand and answer:
Respect.
Throughout the day, I continued to ask myself the question “What matters to you?” and I maintained the courage to voice those answers out loud. What gave me the courage? Realizing that my experience, thoughts, and feelings mattered
- to me and
- to others.
As I was driving home at the end of the day, thinking about all I had witnessed and learned at the retreat, I stopped the car and walked back a ways, to take this photo:
Apparently, that mattered to me, too.
Somebody who matters a great deal to me — my 16-year-old son, Aaron — is taking the PSATs at his school this morning. I think it matters that he eat some friggin’ thing before that test, so it matters to me that he just agreed to eat some of this:
Music also matters to me, so I’m wondering if it matters which song I include in this post.
Because your feedback matters to me, I was going to ask for requests, but then I posted some videos of “Money Don’t Matter 2 Night” by Prince (which were then removed from YouTube). Does it matter if I have music in this post?
Thanks to all those who matter to each other, including you, of course!