I have worked in many organizations that had mission statements. Straying too far from the mission might result in long term problems.
Knowing the mission is a little different than fulfilling it. For example, I often give talks on mission. I ask the question of the audience what they think is the mission of an Air Force hospital.
The answers I get are usually medical related. They talk about taking care of patients on an everyday basis. The problem is those answers are wrong.
The purpose of an Air Force hospital is to support the air power mission during times of war. Hospital personnel do that directly by deploying with the pilots and aircraft. They take care of all the individuals who support that deployment.
They do that indirectly by assuring the deployed individuals that the families they left behind will not have to worry about medical care.
One of the missions that we all have is being a part of a family. One might ask what is the mission of a family. The basic mission is to be a successful family.
There are some families that lose their way. They argue about silly things. They hold grudges for years.
I grew up in a typical Italian household. It was all about family. We had meals together. We visited relatives together. We laughed together and we played together. I have one sister living in Bridgeville. There is another living in Millsboro. They sing with my wife in Our Lady of Lourdes church choir on Saturday evening. We go out to dinner afterward.
We still have meals together. They still gather at my house when my daughters come to visit. We laugh and we play together.
The mental health of every family is dependent upon its interaction with each other. Those interactions occur on a daily basis. However, there are certain times when they can be fostered.
Those include mealtimes. Those include vacations.
When my daughters were growing up, we always ate the evening meal together. The exception was when I was taking care of a sick patient. The dinner table rule was no TV at the dinner table.
Dinner is a time for talking. It is a time for sharing. It is time for being a family. I used to like to take them to restaurants because the dinner was longer in time than what we had at home.
Vacation time is for spending together. My daughters did not play weekend sports. The weekends were reserved for family time. When I was not on call, we would often travel. I was assigned to Andrews AFB for 8 years. When we left my daughters were 13, 10 and 7. They knew downtown DC and the Smithsonian museums very well.
We now have 10 grandchildren. We have taken family trips to Tennessee, Myrtle Beach and Lake Anna, Virginia with them all. Meals still included everyone. The new rule is no electronics at the dinner table.
Everyone depends on those around them to support their mental health needs. There is a limited time that we are given to spend with those we love. We need to take advantage of every minute of that. It will keep our minds committed to our true mission in life.
ADDENDUM
The grief reaction is always predictable. It goes from denial to anger to bargaining to mourning and acceptance. The current reaction to President Biden’s debate performance is not a political one. It is a medical one. After the debate there was denial in the form of “I can’t believe it”. There was a rapid movement to anger about it. That has now been replaced by bargaining. Some people are in the support Biden camp and some are in the replace Biden camp. At some point one of those groups will move on to mourning and acceptance of the eventual outcome.