What If

I don’t normally like to do the What If’s, they usually feel like a waste of time, but everyone in a while when I am sitting pondering things the What if seems to be a good way to turn things upside down and around and get a different perspective.

Looking and talking recently about how after 25 or 30 years of people advocating for change, so little has actually been shown any tangible results. Why is there always talk about making things better for people living with dementia, but things are not much better, people are still segregated, still living on locked units, once in care. Why is it that the need for better dementia education has not happened, or the little that has, has had no real impact for those living with Dementia. Why is there still no rehabilitation services, to help, people are still being told to go home and die.
But what if we look at what has changed is changing, things like the voices of those living with Dementia getting louder and louder, like people living with dementia insisting they have a voice at the table always, when governments, organizations and others are talking about dementia, that Nothing Happen without Us and our input. It has taken a long time, and it still needs improvement, more of our voices than yours.
What if the Organizations and Stakeholders all set aside their “corporate ego’s and personal ego’s”, what if all the Dementia and Alzheimer’s groups did the same. What if they sat at the round table together and actually talked about each other’s strengths and how they might help support each other instead of compete with each. What if that then put the focus on where it should actually be, the persons living with dementia. What if these things were and are actually possible if people truly can set themselves aside and look to the greater good. What if we get past the “ this is the way we’ve always done things”, and the “we did this first”, and got over ourselves enough to truly see how true collaboration is not impossible, it’s actually easier than one thinks. What if we quit saying it won’t work, what if we quit over complicating everything.
Sometimes the answers of all the what if’s are right there in front of us, the question is are the people running the Organizations, and many of them have become big business, are they willing to actually step back, step outside the box, stop long enough to make it about the people living with dementia and not about who’s the biggest and the best, and about money. It is then that true collaboration would and could begin, it is then that all the groups and Organizations could thrive. It is then that we will see true tangible change for those living with dementia.