Universal Truth
With the untimely passing of Wisconsin Department of Health Services Secretary Kitty Rhoades, my thoughts and deepest sympathies are with her family.
SNAPSHOT. With a backdrop of 100 billion stars in a universe made up of 10 trillion galaxies, I feel the wind of seven billion people moving around me. I cannot speak of other times, but in the world of today, it can be hard to feel significant. Searching for significance may leave you empty handed every time. Discovering what you value and putting all of your energy into it, this is where you will find yourself on a fulfilling path. Autonomy and the right to be heard. Two separate ideas that often go hand-in-hand. When it comes to my own health and well-being, I am the best expert. The ability to govern my day is something that I value greatly. For people with disabilities, autonomy is a novel idea that can be much harder to put into practice. Access to the publicly funded programs that provide many individuals with the support they need to live healthy and fully in the community require routine assessments to redetermine whether the funding being used is continually needed. Such assessments help with reducing improper use of government funds, but having an outside party evaluate the support one needs can also create vast restrictions in terms of personal choice for the participant. The right to be heard is separated from "freedom of speech" by the implication that the recipient will consider your words. An occurrence of this may be rare, yet it does happen. Evidence of this took place about one week ago when the Wisconsin Department of Health Services withdrew a request to the state legislature to remodel the existing long-term care service system. When the changes were proposed over a year ago, there was an outpouring of concern for how an effort to reduce government spending would impact the day-to-day lives of program participants and their families. Over the following months, people from all over the state came together, they organized their efforts, and the department held several listening sessions to gather information. Then the announcement was made: all changes would be put on hold for the time being, restoring confidence that those who would be most impacted by future measures would be included in the discussion. With a flash, a moment strikes that brings with it a brief clarity – the immensity that surrounds us, the unending noise that can feel so oppressive – the smallness I feel is merely an illusion. Finding what you value is important in this life, and with time you realize, supporting those values is best achieved when working in unison with the world around you.
Just like the five hundred quadrillion grains of sand on Earth, forming as one is how you can shape the tides.