Who gets to say what's significant and what counts?
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
Recently I found online a boring and strange little story about stockbrokers in a corridor. They seemed to be going out of their minds as we were reading. Something about the sandwiches…
It got me thinking. I've never heard stockbrokers and sandwiches in the same sentence before. They aren't the kind of words that usually seem related. If someone was trying to suggest ways to help support the mental health of stockbrokers, giving them better sandwiches doesn't seem likely to feature — not on the NHS, anyway.
Public services that offer care at scale can't just be rolling out menu options and favourite novels and dream scenarios as standard.
The Make-A-Wish Foundation could, but that's different.
If you're the new prime minister working out how best to stretch a limited budget to a certain 'kind' of people with the kinds of issues they tend to face, you're going to need more straightforward categories and classifications. That's quite reasonable.
Ask any mathematician. The average stockbroker is not going to have their life changed by more flavoursome sandwich options. Not radically, anyway.
Decisions have to be made.
What's relevant?
What counts?
What's truly significant, and what's stretching things just a bit too far?
Take rich people, for example. What do they need?
(I would have said poor people, but that would've got complaints.)
((Either way, it's a bit of a broad spectrum, isn't it.)) Rich or poor, someone might tell you to take a deep breath. Several of them.
Whatever you're facing, calming down a little might help you think straight.
Even in a long corridor with second rate sandwiches.
Systems at scale might advocate the deep breath strategy.
Put your feet up, maybe.
Even borrowing calming strategies and mindsets from other cultures and religions — to a point. Systems can't be seen to be making truth claims, but if it makes you 'feel' better, it's got to be officially good, hasn't it?
Yes, 'putting your feet up' is sweeping the nation.
In fact, research has shown that 'putting your feet up' is especially effective if done the 'right way'. It's a practice drawn from traditions of mindfulness and prayer, but no need to go overboard, all you really need is a way to achieve tangible benefits. If it gets you earning more money, then that's even better. If it's helping you deal with things in a way that lightens the burden on the system, that's fabulous. Wonderful. Marvellous.
The stockbrokers in the story would like this suggestion. They've been walking for a long time. They'd been thinking it was other things that were getting them down, but it turns out putting their feet up makes a nice change, and even takes their mind off the sandwiches for a while.
But eventually someone hungry says, "But can we get some help with the sandwich issue?"
And the glaring truth of the matter might be, it was never about the sandwiches.
And the big picture thinkers and ancient scripture readers might be thinking, this is a wake-up call.
But the system says,
SYSTEM CLASSIFICATION ERROR
Recommended intervention: Putting Your Feet Up.
Because then we can actually help.
And someone hungry says, define help.
And the glaring truth might be, it all depends who gets to say what's significant and what counts.
You know, I can imagine someone writing a blog post that really goes to town with all this — looks into the meaning of the word 'significant' and even pulls in Isaiah and Jonah, or something.
Want to say something back?
If this gets you thinking, throws up another thought, intrigues you a little, or sends you somewhere I haven't thought of, I'd be glad to hear from you.
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