Over the weekend, I heard several words, three in fact, that I thought I might share with you. Two of the words were spoken by a football coach, and the other was discussed by the pastor of my church. I will leave it up to you to determine which words were spoken by which speaker.

The first word that caught my attention was Inspiration. Inspiration, the speaker proclaimed, is a result of an external factor. We are “inspired” by something outside of us which leads to a response from within us. People are inspired by a rainbow, or a compelling story, or an event of some kind. This external factor compels the observer to respond in some way, like leading a volunteer work crew in the rebuilding of a disaster victims home for instance. You get my point.

The second word was Aspiration. Aspiration is a strong internal desire to achieve something high, or great. Aspiration requires no external motivation, or compelling factor that urges a response. Rather, to aspire to something means that you have inwardly decided that you want to accomplish something high, or of great quality.

The third word was Intentionality. Roughly defined, intentionality means “to be about something.” To be about? What does that mean? Well, are you intentional about your work? What about your diet, or exercise routine? To be intentional means that you are focused on a particular thing, or cause, or doctrine.

These three words caught my interest not because of their lofty definitions, or because I am a verbal person. No, they caught my interest because they describe many of the people with whom I have worked since Hurricane Katrina. Many people were inspired to take on the work involved in the recovery effort.  And yet when the external event – the storm itself – had passed from the front pages of newspapers and when the discussion of Katrina related issues subsided, many of those same people lost their inspiration and moved on to the other aspects of their lives or were inspired by some other new event. In fact, this is true of most of the people within our nation as a whole. There are simply too many things, good and bad, that occur on a daily basis to expect one single event to hold the attention of the masses for very long. However, there are also those who are still involved in this work who demonstrate a great deal of staying power; intentionality. They are “about” getting the job of recovery completed. These folks are sometimes so singularly focused that they forget to be intentional about taking care of themselves. Generally, they are tired, often frustrated by the barriers that still exist, and do not make the best decisions about self care.

Does this describe you? It does describe me, and I have vowed to become intentional about taking better care of my spiritual, mental, and physical health. I urge you to do that as well. Finally, nearly all of the people with whom I have come into contact lately are individuals who aspire to doing a great job. There is no need for external motivation or inspiration for these people. They seem to aspire to do the very best they can at whatever they do. For example, I attended the case management supervisors meeting this last week, and I remember thinking to myself that “these folks want to do this job the right way.” Questions were asked that were hard to answer, and that was a good thing. It demonstrated what I felt, that people in that room aspire to do things at a high level all the time. In order to finish the job that Katrina left us to do, that is what we all need to be thinking all the time. The inspiration of Katrina that propelled us into action has long since faded from the headlines, and yet there are those who are still being intentional and aspiring to get the job done in a high quality manner. I thank you for your continued service and ask that you do take care of yourself. Be intentional, aspire to greatness, and find inspiration from your peers who are striving to make MCMC and the overall recovery effort a high success!

Blessings,

Stephen P Carr II, MA, MFT
Program Director
Mississippi Case Management Consortium
www.mc-mc.org