One of those moments.

[haleyw]

Today, at work, I had one of those moments where the universe just seems to open up and you see your own mortality right in front of you.

I had a meeting with my boss and she was talking about negative outcomes. If someone drops out of our education programmes for whatever reason, it's a negative outcome, we don't get as much funding, etc,etc. She said " I had three die one year (all youngsters 16-24) and they still wouldn't take them off my targets. No way of re-engaging them, when they are dead is there." So matter of fact!

This comment just made me think - these young people are just a number. WE are all just a number. Once you have taken out the people or animals who's lives you have touched, beyond that you are nothing. There is nothing more. That's it. That's all. Put life into perspective for me right there, in that moment.

It was weird.

 

[Milfoil]

Once you have taken out the people or animals who's lives you have touched, beyond that you are nothing. There is nothing more. That's it. That's all. Put life into perspective for me right there, in that moment.

It was weird.

What a wonderful way of putting it. You have come across a new facet to the realisation that we are all connected. Without others (ie all of creation), we are nothing.

Thanks for sharing that, it has given me something to contemplate.

 

[Chiska]

I had a meeting with my boss and she was talking about negative outcomes. If someone drops out of our education programmes for whatever reason, it's a negative outcome, we don't get as much funding, etc,etc. She said " I had three die one year (all youngsters 16-24) and they still wouldn't take them off my targets. No way of re-engaging them, when they are dead is there." So matter of fact!

This comment just made me think - these young people are just a number. WE are all just a number. Once you have taken out the people or animals who's lives you have touched, beyond that you are nothing. There is nothing more. That's it. That's all. Put life into perspective for me right there, in that moment.

It was weird.

I work in education (professional / technical ) and we get so hung up on the numbers sometimes that it is easy to forget the actual, living, breathing human beings that come to us for help in learning a trade. They have families and worries and looming mortgages just like we do.

I work hard to remember they are not just an FTES (full time equivalent student). But the system just demands that they be reduced to FTES, something that can be counted and used for budgeting purposes.

It is difficult to not fall into that - feeling that you are just a number - and becoming complacent or apathetic. I see too many who are just that - they go through the motions because they just don't see any meaning anymore - they only think of themselves as a number.

 

[PAMUYA]

Thank you Hailey...for taking me out of my own head and to remember everyone out there suffers and have joy just like me. I must work on having compassion for everyone, we are more than just numbers.

 

[Eco74]

I think this shows just how important it is to live in the present moment, to appreciate the good we have around us - especially in other people we care about and who need us - and stop worrying so much about appearances and pasts and details that don't really make much difference in the end.

If at the end of the day we can honestly state that we've made a difference for the better in someones life - then it has truly been a good day.

It's an inspiring thought.

 

[raeanne]

WE are all just a number. Once you have taken out the people or animals who's lives you have touched, beyond that you are nothing. There is nothing more. That's it. That's all.

I do not agree with this. We are not just a number. Even without other people, animals, etc. I am not 'nothing'. I am spirit. I am hope. I am dreams. I am creativity. I am.

 

[haleyw]

I do not agree with this. We are not just a number. Even without other people, animals, etc. I am not 'nothing'. I am spirit. I am hope. I am dreams. I am creativity. I am.

I know and I agree! I just thought to other people, the ones that don't know about us we are a number. The person in the bank that issues your bank statement, that you've never met, the electricity, water, gas, insurance companies. We are just a number! It's a scary thought. I want to reach out and say "That name there, that's me. I am not just a number. This is me and I have done X Y and Z in my life." When my boss was saying about those being numbers I felt like I wanted to say that to her about them. It made me quite angry! You know.

 

[prudence]

Today, at work, I had one of those moments where the universe just seems to open up and you see your own mortality right in front of you.

I had a meeting with my boss and she was talking about negative outcomes. If someone drops out of our education programmes for whatever reason, it's a negative outcome, we don't get as much funding, etc,etc. She said " I had three die one year (all youngsters 16-24) and they still wouldn't take them off my targets. No way of re-engaging them, when they are dead is there." So matter of fact!

This comment just made me think - these young people are just a number. WE are all just a number. Once you have taken out the people or animals who's lives you have touched, beyond that you are nothing. There is nothing more. That's it. That's all. Put life into perspective for me right there, in that moment.

It was weird.

It sounds like she was a bit too detached and imo, cold about the deaths of those young people who are/were to her just numbers....just some cogs in the machine that while they were alive represented money/funding, and now that they are gone, they represent (in her eyes) a lack of funding. But maybe that is how a woman like her, in her position deals with sad things like people dying way too young. It is shocking when you are young to have peers pass away, as they really aren't "supposed to" just yet....it's a shock, and it wakes you up a bit, like hold on, I am only 24, people my age don't die, or they shouldn't die.... mortality, when you have not really given it a whole lot of consideration, (and really at 24, one shouldn't have to consider death) is such a jarring reality.

When I was in college I had a summer job in a hospital and whenever a "code blue" was called over the intercom, I would really be affected by the reality of it. (Code blue means someone in the hospital is in full arrest, and every available hand goes running to the scene to help attempt to revive the dying/dead person) I was in an office job, so I was not a part of the code, but just knowing it was happening right at that moment left me feeling so sad and if I were in the middle of eating lunch/dinner, I usually found my appetite gone. But, looking around me at all of the other employees, they acted as if nothing unpleasant was taking place at all. They just continued their meals, their laughter filled conversations and acted like life is good. I worked there for many summers after the age of 18, and never got used to things like people dying while I was otherwise occupied with life.

 

[danieljuk]

In bureaucracy we are all numbers! But in the universe we are living thinking beings with connections

The sad thing is people who die and are just a bureaucratic number and no one ever were close or knew them!

 

[Chiriku]

When I was in college I had a summer job in a hospital and whenever a "code blue" was called over the intercom, I would really be affected by the reality of it. (Code blue means someone in the hospital is in full arrest, and every available hand goes running to the scene to help attempt to revive the dying/dead person) I was in an office job, so I was not a part of the code, but just knowing it was happening right at that moment left me feeling so sad and if I were in the middle of eating lunch/dinner, I usually found my appetite gone. But, looking around me at all of the other employees, they acted as if nothing unpleasant was taking place at all. They just continued their meals, their laughter filled conversations and acted like life is good. I worked there for many summers after the age of 18, and never got used to things like people dying while I was otherwise occupied with life.

My whole life when I was growing up, my mother would pause at the sound of ambulance and say, "Someone is in pain/dying," and stop to pray for them.

To this day, I hear an ambulance (and that happens on a daily basis) and pause to think about who might be suffering.