Putting Frustration into Perspective

Last week Tuesday I gave a presentation to my local chapter of certified medical assistants. I really wanted to tell them all about and show them pictures of Kenya, but to get CEU credit, I had to tailor it to fit the health care field in America. So the topic was “Poverty in America and Its Effects on Health”. Denise, my partner in crime on the trip to Kenya last fall, is going to give the same presentation with me tomorrow for the state CMAs. We are tying the many examples of poverty we witnessed in Kenya into our talk.

In preparation for both presentations I had printed off not only the outline of the talk, but several pages of highlighted articles off of the internet to use as reference. When I started setting up last Tuesday’s talk I could not find any of those papers in any of the stuff I had taken along. I didn’t sweat it, I could wing it. I would find the papers at home that night and slap myself upside the head.

Alas. The papers weren’t anywhere to be found at my house. Or in any of my bags or my car or anywhere else that I have traversed in the last ten days. Not a problem, right? Because I surely saved my work on the computer and can just print off more pages for the talk tomorrow. No, of course, I did not do that.

I spent all of last night searching the house and both my computers one more time, but to no avail. I even went online to find those articles again and start from scratch. That was an exhausting search which ended nearly as quickly as it began. In frustration.

It’s not like I don’t have enough good and accurate information for this talk on Saturday. I still do have the complete outline and the powerpoint. It’s just - argh – you know – one of those things that makes you think are losing your mind. Or at least makes you want to just punch something.

As I started writing this rant, this is what came up as my scrolling desktop picture on my laptop.

This is on the grounds of Southern Cross Academy at the SIDP at Maai Mahiu. I’ve written about this school many times. This foundation was supposed to be where a community center was going to be, but funds and volunteers to build it petered out. I just needed that picture to put it all back into perspective.

Maybe our talk tomorrow won’t have all the bells and whistles I would like, but it not only has a foundation, it has walls, a roof, and windows. Or at least I hope that’s what the attendees think. And if they don’t like it, well, if our presentation has a door, they can go out it.