What Are Your Goals?

We can look at this question from many angles.  Are we training for a competition?  Are we trying to lose or gain weight?  Do we need to choose a career? And this question is also relatable to health care. 

An article in The Washington Post by Dr. Mitch Kaminshi from March 9, 2015 discusses this question from the patient’s point of view.  The medical community generally wants to solve the problem for the patient.  The patient may really want to be able to reach a level of quality of life that is important to him/her.

The same goes for thinking about how we want to leave our “stuff” to our heirs.  What are our goals?  Do we want to leave our papers in order?  Have all the important information readily accessible?  Or do we want our children or friends/ family to have a difficult time finding papers, names, and phone numbers in order to settle our estate?  Do we want to allocate our money in a specific way or do we want to leave it to the state?  Do we want people arguing over our care or do we want to have our wishes carried out if we are incapacitated? 

Each of us has an idea of what we want and too often no one asks us for our thoughts.  So tell your family you want them to have a difficult time finding all your papers when the situation calls for it so they will get off your back about getting a will or organizing your papers.  Or tell them you are taking action and getting your affairs in order and insist they should do the same.  Use my form or find another one as a start.

What are YOUR goals?  

Death Cafe

I know, it's a weird title.

I had heard of Death Dinners but not Death Cafes-- until recently.  Death Cafes is a series of meetings to discuss and explore feelings and attitudes toward death.  The movement began in Europe in 2011.  The University of North Carolina at  Ashville has hosted several Death Cafes.  At the meetings the 50 participants talk about their own death, the death of others and how that experience impacted them, and how they want to see their death unfold.  The leader makes one statement to start the discussion, "What is your relationship with death and dying and let that be your guide."   

People seems to leave these programs in a calm state and with a determination to discuss the subject of death with their loved ones.  A survey by The  Conversation Project, found 90 percent of people polled said talking with their loved ones about end-of-life care is important, but only about 30 percent said they had actually had the talk.  Of course, this is what we do...we ruminate over things, have talks in our head, read, think and infrequently take the final step to talk about the issue. 

You can hear Helen Chickering's report on WCQS's news . 

Would you attend a Death Café?  How about a pot luck Death Dinner?