I like to celebrate Canada Day by volunteering at Abbotsford’s Canada Day celebration. It is the spirit of volunteerism, sharing and caring that sets Canada so strongly, so clearly apart from our neighbour to the south. This volunteer spirit, in its mix of manifestations, I see as a key to addressing the major social issues and problems facing us as a community, province, country – as a people, a race.

And if you are going to open your mouth and comment on the behaviour of your community one had better be willing to practice what you preach. Fortunately for me, in this instance volunteering is easy, rewarding enough to bring me back year after year.

I like to get my volunteer registration in ASAP so I will get to work? play? in the zone of my choosing. There is something therapeutic in watching kids enjoying the day, playing games, listening to stories and doing crafts.

Some kids think carefully and only then take action while others are a frenzy of crafting activity. Watching them, helping them recharges one’s positive attitude battery even as the day in the sun outside leaves you physically tired.

Finished and packed up at the Canada Day celebration I had just enough time to grab a bite to eat, a shower and open the shelter for the night. Quite a thought provoking contrast between these two very different groups of people I spent my Canada Day with.

The kids full of energy and bright promise, the decisions that will affect the course of their lives ahead of them. For the clients of the shelter some of those life altering decisions have been made – poorly made, with to some extent, appalling outcomes and consequences. But like the kids out celebrating Canada Day every client’s future still holds more life affecting decisions ahead of them, holding out the promise of making wiser choices.

One of the harsh truths of our world is that some of those happy children out exploring and enjoying Canada Day are going to make bad choices and end up struggling with addiction, mental illness, misfortune, homelessness or some combination thereof. There can be no doubt that on past Canada Days some of our clients too had spent the day exploring and enjoying the day as happy children, their life altering bad decisions and poor choices in the future.

Looking across the sea of young people on Canada Day it is impossible to know which young people will make good decisions and wise choices and which ones will make bad decisions and unwise choices. All you can know is that some will end up clients in need of help.

The point of this train of thought, this musing, is that at some point in their lives shelter clients were young children full of life and promise. They were, and are, somebody’s children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers, sisters and friends.

There is no way to tell which children, whose children will suffer the fate and fallout of bad decisions and poor choices. All you can do is make sure that the housing, programs and support for those in need of the help to start making better decisions and wiser choices, to begin the road to recovery, are in place.

Ensuring that when those unfortunate, unlucky kids from Canada Day July 1, 2007 make their bad decisions and choices their road to recovery will not run into the barrier of indifference. And all the barriers and obstacles that indifference throws into the path to recovery; those barriers and obstacles that deny prior generations of children who made bad choices – recovery.

Ending homelessness, supporting those in recovery from mental illness and addictions are a matter of choice. We can choose and commit ourselves to accomplishing these goals. We merely need the will to DO IT, the willingness to change from sticking Band-Aids on these wounded fellow citizens to actually dealing with the issues and needs.

We need only commit ourselves to these goals and demand that our elected representatives do what we elect them to, but they loath risking, providing leadership on addressing difficult issues and problems. We have to exercise the patience of “one day at a time” and “progress not perfection” ever remembering we are dealing with people problems, guaranteeing a certain messiness.

If we as Canadians so choose, Canada Day 2008 can hold the promise of a brighter, healthier future for our children and all Canadians and our country – Canada, whose day we celebrate.

I lost a podmate (roommate) today when he returned to the great outdoors. Lately Income Assistance had been playing their non-assistance games with him; with Income Assistance as the cat and him as the poor cornered, tormented mouse. He began to feel trapped and a prisoner of their whims to the point he was driven to move out onto the streets in order to regain his freedom, peace of mind and self respect.

The sobering, somewhat scary thing is that I can really understand where he is coming from.

I need to get a CPAP machine to make my sleep more restful and revitalizing. However that would require dealing with Income Assistance and previous deals with them have so scarred my psyche that I have a mental block against taking any action that would cause me to have to deal with Income assistance.

Also it was not all that many days ago I was starting to look longingly at the back seat of my car with fond thoughts of the time spent sleeping and living in said automobile. I get a strange look from people who have no frame of reference to understand this point of view when I acknowledge there are days or periods of time when the thought of getting away and living in my car again is so enticing.

I know if I was not myself ensnared in the limbo that is the transition off the streets and getting ones life moving under ones own management, I would lack an understanding or awareness of just how difficult this process can be. I am experiencing it, I have run into the barriers or watched others run into different barriers, but some days the process is unfathomable.

It was so easy when I was young and starting out on my own. I travelled across Canada from ocean to ocean; moved from Southern Ontario to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan without a hitch; moved on to other cities to other employment; moved across country to Abbotsford, BC; all with relative easy. But the move from Mental Illness to Recovery (of the best mental health I have ever had), the move from homelessness and the streets to employment and a home is proving to be more akin to scaling Mt. Everest.

Truthfully, it is beginning to seem that climbing Olympus Mons on Mars (highest peak in the solar system) would be less difficult than scaling the heights of employment and housing.

This leads to frustration, major frustration, and hammers away at your spirit until hope is lost. Caught in the pit of hopelessness you feel like a fly in a spider’s web; your struggles seem pointless, only entangling you deeper into the web you are caught in. The primitive part of the brain kicks in the fight or flight reflex and the seeming freedom of open spaces beckons with its promise of relief.

You bolt for liberty, self-determination and free will under the open skies and the stars of night – so enticing a siren song.

I came so very close to listening to that song myself just two weeks ago. I was thinking longingly of the freedom from frustration and the ability to leave cares behind. There were a few evenings when the craving to seek out a favoured parking/camping spot for the night as opposed to returning to the cell of my habitation was nearly overwhelming.

Living in my car I have to focus on day-to-day tasks: shower, food, laundry, drinkable water and a place to park and sleep. Your focus on merely surviving chases other things out of your forebrain, a kind of enforced mental holiday from frustrations.

Fortunately (or unfortunately?), I had some meetings and other items on my schedule that served to remind me of the goals I intend to accomplish. When one seeks to bring about major changes in homeless, addiction recovery, housing, social and poverty policies, awareness and behaviour I suppose one has to accept that frustration is a basic fact of life. Examining the frustration of my personal situation in the context of the frustration of witnessing the waste of money and lives of current behaviours, systems and policies … well How Important Is It? This Too Shall Pass. One Day at a Time. Let Go and Let God.

When I first heard them these slogans seemed so trite but in listening, learning and thinking about them they became tools to be used to overcome things like frustration and other “stinkin’ thinkin’”.

Because falling prey to stinkin’ thinkin’ is what gets all of us in so much trouble and causes so many problems and difficulties within our lives, community, society, country and the world.

Carrying out some mental hygiene let me adjust my attitude and get back to focusing on what is important – bringing about change. Although I am left wondering if one of the changes I should most seek to set in motion is to get everyone practising good mental hygiene and overcoming stinkin’ thinkin.

So, how healthy and hygienic is your mind?