HumanKIND... Mental Health Awareness Day Every Day

"stigma" (CC BY-ND 2.0) by Leonard J Matthews

Let's be honest, mental health is a market. It drives an industry. There is big money in mental health. Thousands of people leverage their position within the market by providing a service designed to help people. They possess skills, they have the training, and they have experience and that's all great. We need many more of these mental health professionals, and there should be funding to support less advantaged people's access to them. However... 

There are real things that can be done every day by all of us to support our own, and each other's mental health. We don't need large corporate sponsors or big publicity t-shirt days to empower empathy, understanding, and unconditional care for each other. The moral and righteous path to improved mental health in our society is for people to be kinds to themselves, and each other EVERY DAY. We don't need a program, a campaign, a hashtag, or anything else other than the will to be human and cohabitate the planet peacefully doing our best to enjoy every moment we're blessed to have on this earth. 

It's cliche, (most things that have been completely true for a really long time are,) but we must once and for all learn how to go really hard on issues, solving problems, and creating better futures, and really, really soft on the people we share our life-spaces with. A more important reality doesn't exist. We need an empathy reboot.

HumanKIND depends on it.

One of my best teachers...

The United Church built by two of my great grandfathers
in my grandfather's "home town" of Sovereign, SK

Some time ago I wrote this about my grandfather; one of my best teachers. On March 30, 2013 at 4:00 in the morning, exactly ten years to the day after my grandmother passed away, he died in Nepean, ON. I always reflect on his life and his passing at this time of year, but particularly this year I've been thinking a lot lately about how he'd react and respond to the current state of the world amidst the global pandemic. It's interesting to also reflect on the fact that I am now the age of my grandfather when I was born. He lived through several humanity threatening conditions in his days, and I wish I could talk to him about all that. Anyone who knows me really, really well will know that much of what I am as a person and a man came from him.

Born near Milestone Sask. in 1918, my grandfather moved to a farm near Sovereign, Sask. with his parents, eventually taking over the farm and marrying my grandmother, Emily in 1939. In addition to farming my grandfather also taught himself how to be an electrician and wired almost all of the homes in the immediate area around Sovereign. I actually have the Devry Institute distance education electrical manuals that he used to study for his electrical ticket way back in the 50's.

In his spare time he worked as a mechanic, curled, coached a woman's hockey team, dabbled in amateur theater, built two homes and even sold, installed and repaired the first televisions in the area. He was an active member of the Sovereign Masonic Lodge #192 and was a Life Member. In 1956 he took his family to Saskatoon where he soon found permanent employment as a Control Room Operator and subsequently a System Dispatcher with Saskatchewan Power. The next 29 years saw him move from Saskatoon to Squaw Rapids, then Estevan and finally back to Saskatoon where he eventually retired.