Humanist Thought of the Week

Death as a Communal Experience

My dad died.

It was sudden and unexpected.

As a result, I’m grieving, as is everyone in my family – extended family included.

My father was an extraordinary man and he touched a lot of people’s lives.

The interesting thing about grief is that after a certain age, everyone you know has experienced it.

And they want to tell you about their loss and their experience and their grief.

It’s their way to sharing your grief with you, in the moment.

We aren’t alone our grief though it may sometimes feel that way. 

When you grieve you allow others to share their grief experiences as well.

And together we grieve the people we loved and we realize, we can still live despite our loss because we still have each other.

And that’s comforting.

Humor is a Nice Diffusor

I am a mom. 

Which means, I have a kid who sometimes drives me crazy.

It is at these times I am most likely to tease my son and encourage him to make better choices that don’t make me so crazy.

I don’t yell at him much anymore.

I figure if he is capable of language, he is capable of reasoning.

Here is the choice I give him when he is starting to drive me crazy. 

He can either have crazy mommy who reaches her breaking point and yells. 

Or ... he can have calm mommy who asks him to do things nicely. 

No one wants crazy mommy, least of all mommy. 

He always laughs when I give him this option and then chooses to comply with my request.

This is way better than me losing it.

Being honest about my limits as a parent and as a human helps him understand how he impacts others.

Plus, humor is always a nice diffuser. It reduces my tension and his and allows us to recalibrate our emotions so we can both make good choices.

Get Help

Don’t be afraid to get help.

Whether you need physical therapy or mental health therapy, get it!

My son’s life has been drastically improved by the physical therapy he has received.

My life has been drastically improved by the mental health therapy I have received.

Health is both mental and physical. 

Are brains are physical organs. 

They can be improved.

Our thinking can be improved.

Our coping skills can be improved.

Suffering isn’t noble. Not if it can be avoided.

If you are suffering, get help.

Find a therapist and do what you need to do to fix your problem, whether it’s physical or mental.

People Power

Humanism puts humans front and center.

Our concern is for the welfare of humans and humanity.

We want a world where all people are able to thrive.

This means we want all people to have access to education, health care, housing, employment and the means of enjoyment.

Too many people are locked out of the economy and their ability to thrive is limited as a result.

Discrimination denies people access to basic means of survival.  

Whether it is red lining neighborhoods so people can’t get loans.

Laws that prohibit the hiring of certain people.

Or health care providers who seek the right to refuse to care for patients because of religious beliefs. 

When one person is prohibited from full participation in society, all of society suffers.

We are all in this together. We need all hands on deck and yet, we refuse to let some of those hands help. 

It’s insanity.

If we want to harness the full potential of humanity, we must empower all people to fully participate in society.

It is clear that the changes required aren’t going to happen on their own.

If we want society to change, we are going to need to do the hard work to make it change.

Power to the people, means people using their power to create change!

Humanism in Medicine - Decision Making

My husband recently had heart stents put in.

He’s had warning signs for years that he ignored: high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and in the past year – increasing fatigue. 

He finally ended up in the emergency room with chest pains. 

We are fortunate that he’s ok and no damage was done.

Lots of people aren’t so lucky. Some have no warning at all. 

The reason I want to share this is because we put my husband’s life at risk by not following the advice of his doctor.

This is partly because we couldn’t afford the medicine required, but also because we were in denial about his condition. 

We didn’t want to believe that his health was really deteriorating or that there was anything we could do to improve it. 

We should have paid attention to the science.

We should have allowed the experts to inform our decision making and instead, we ignored them out of fear and irrational hope.

Humanism in medicine isn’t just about making sure that care providers treat patients as fully human.

It’s also about using the best knowledge we have to treat people.

We are Humanists and we ignored the best information there was.

When it comes to your health, trust the experts and the science and don’t ignore the reality of your health out of fear.

We got lucky. We aren’t going to make that mistake again.