As we see with Temple Grandin’s success, one of the most important things we can do is help people feel good about themselves.
We don’t have to be the doctor or lawyer or rich business person.
But we do need to feel competent and good about who we are as a person.
Happiness comes from how we feel inside about ourselves.
It’s not what we do as a profession; it’s who we are as a human being.
This attitude and way of thinking has taken shape and evolved through raising my daughter with special needs.
When Nava was a baby and we lived in the Chicago area, we used to visit a farm community for adults with disabilities during their weekend crafts fair. I loved the land and the environment but I used to leave feeling sad; sad that Joe was just making popcorn and Mary was just bagging at the cashier. That’s what they did in life? How can they be happy with just that? I can still feel the pit in my stomach as I drove home from the farm.
I realized I was looking at these people’s jobs and happiness through my own lens. No, I would not be too thrilled {just} making popcorn all day or packaging people’s purchases.
But that’s the content, the product. Perhaps the process, the inner workings of the person, was relaying a completely different message – one of joy and gratitude, of appreciation and feelings of competence and pride.
The ‘farm people’ certainly radiated joy and showed such pride in what they did.
And so my focus became helping Navi feel good about whatever it was she was doing and attempting, however small a feat it was. I didn’t know what she would be capable of doing when she grew up. But I wanted her to be armed with as much positive feelings and high self- esteem as possible.
It was about instilling in her feelings of self pride, competence, success and overall good feelings about herself. (Truth be told, we know each and every person needs these core and fundamental traits of the soul in order to lead a good life and be able to withstand challenges and troubles along the way.)
Navi has stuttered since she’s 5 years old. Besides the obvious speech therapy she received for years, the important factor was in trying to not have her stuttering interfere or take away from her wonderful people-person personality.
It hasn’t. She appears quite comfortable with her {stuttering} self. Perhaps if she’d be more bothered by it, she’d work harder at controlling it, as she does have some techniques to use. But I let it go. Again, the most important thing is for her to be at ease with herself.
Nava has been working at Trader Joe’s (a unique food market) for the past 8 years, where she bags people’s purchases (sound familiar?), helps customers, shelves food products; basically everything except check out/cashier. And she is thrilled. She gets her highest ratings for friendliness, helpfulness and cooperation (although she occasionally gets reprimanded for schmoozing too much). She is eager to learn new things and is proud of herself when she gets it and can do it. She recently stood up on a low ladder (for the first time) to shelf something, with a supervisor near her. She was tickled pink that she was able to do it.
So let’s tickle each other pink as we help bring out the good in one another and foster those feelings of worth and competence. We must meet each other where we’re at and promote a sense of pride and joy in our efforts and accomplishments. For this is what carries us forth in life and gives us incentive to continue on.
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