It’s interesting that, since deciding to want to start the process of finding me a more suitable care home, I’ve had the lyrics to the Josh Wilson song “Dream Small” in my head a lot. This is a Christian song about the fact that, while there’s nothing wrong with wanting to change the world in big ways, small contributions matter too.
Of course, that’s probably not the meaning behind these lyrics being stuck in my head. I don’t dream of ending world poverty or solving the climate crisis. In fact, the reason I want to move to another care home, has little to do with wanting to improve other people’s lives.
However, in a sense, the title of this song speaks to me, as do certain points in the lyrics. I may want to change my life in a big way by moving to another care home (assuming one can be found), but that doesn’t mean I don’t need to pay attention to the little ways in which I can improve my life right now. I still need to focus my attention on my current quality of life.
I am grateful that I finally found the motivation to look up a polymer clay video tutorial again. I couldn’t at the time actually go and work on the project taught in the tutorial, but I will later this week.
I am also grateful to have started reading again. I finally picked up Thrive by Kenneth Oppel, since I really need to finish the Overthrow trilogy even though Hatch was a bit disappointing.
All that being said, dreaming small does mean that small setbacks can get me to become unstable easily. For example, yesterday I found out that the headphones I bought at the end of March and that stopped working two weeks later, most likely hadn’t been sent out to the manufacturer by the store I bought them at. The lack of clarity about this sent me spiraling out of control. It may just be a pair of headphones – material things, money if you will -, but to me, the situation was quite unbearable.
With respect to the care home situation, I am also reminded of a fellow patient on the locked psych unit who told me I needed to focus on changing myself, not my living situation. This was over fourteen years and four living places ago. I do not fully agree, but partly, I do, in the sense that my distress is partly caused by internal sources. If I keep focusing my attention on external circumstances, these internal sources will not change. If I can reframe my thinking around those, I can decrease my distress. The problem is, I can’t usually reframe my thinking.
A Multitude of Musings 