You are dispensable

People have a natural tendency to believe or to hope that they are indispensable. That the world will stop and take notice if anything happens to them. This is what John C. Maxwell says in the book Talent is Never Enough. I have been unwell for a couple of months. Even in health, one of my hobbies is thinking. So being bed and home bound, really took that hobby to a different pitch. So I had my own Olympics of Thinking. Though the world kept on spinning, it was humbling and comforting to note how many of my friends ranging from those that I met in primary school to those that I have met in my adulthood rallied around me. How they stopped their worlds in many instances to be there physically and emotionally for me. And the fact that though it was not a terminal or life threatening situation, but with its own painful and challenging healing timeframes, made their concern and love even more treasured. My mum literally uprooted herself from our family home to be at my side at my place for two months.

Being an entrepreneur, especially if you are still in a startup phase, there are different pressures that you have to contend with when you fall ill unexpectedly and over a long period of time. Thank goodness for advances in technology, you do not get completely cut off, but obviously the medication and pain do interfere with your productivity level. I hope to share with you things one must prepare for, as an entrepreneur, so that were it to happen to you, you are hopefully, mentally and financially, better prepared. But that is for next time. In the meantime, I would like to share a poem by Saxon White Kessinger and would love to hear your experiences of finding out that you are dispensable or learnings gained from an emergency situation or tragedy that caused you to opt out of most of your regular activities for an extended period of time, what support you received, what were the main stresses that interfered with your recovery and how you coped.

Indispensable (Wo) Man

Sometime when you’re feeling important;

Sometime when your egos in bloom

Sometime when you take it for granted

You’re the best qualified in the room

Sometime when you feel that your going

Would leave an un-fillable hole,

Just follow these simple instructions

And see how they humble your soul;

Take a bucket and fill it with water,

Put your hand in it up to the wrist,

Pull it out and the hole that’s remaining

Is a measure of how youll be missed.

You can splash all you wish when you enter,

You may stir up the water galore,

But stop and youll find that in no time

It looks quite the same as before.

The moral of this quaint example

Is do just the best that you can,

Be proud of yourself but remember,

Theres no indispensable (wo) man.