If You Could Do Anything, What Would it Be?

Image by bayareabaw via Flickr

Oh, well, looks like yesterday is going to have to be one of my “get out of post free” days. Between the pain levels and the Vicodin hangover (I don’t take that crap very often, so it can have some odd effects,) I slept until I had to get ready for work. I’ll probably make it up later though, because the prompt is pretty interesting.

The day 6 prompt for The Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge (#HAWMC) is “If I could do anything as a Health Activist… Get aspirational. Money is no longer an option. What is your biggest goal that is now possible? How could you get there? Now bring it back down to size. How much of this can you accomplish now, in a year, in five years?”

This is gonna be fun. I’ve been thinking about all the things I’d like to do if I had the money for a WHILE and a lot of it is just going to be writing it all down, so lets get started.

• First, I’d quit my job at the awful place so I could focus on my writing and research.
• I’d set up an actual office/studio space so I’d have somewhere I could do audios, videos, and decent pictures for my writing and get away from the constant interruptions while I’m trying to write.
• I’d start working on that TV show from day 2 of the challenge.
• I’d start the newsletter that’s been waiting for me to be able to afford the autoresponder for it, upgrade my hosting plan to provide more functionality for my site, upgrade my free accounts on places like HootSuite and Timely, get rid of all the annoying affiliate links on my site, and do some advertising.
• I’d do more experimentation and research on alternative treatments, and get certified as both an herbalist and an aromatherapist.
• I’d add resources to the website, like scheduled chats on various topics with someone actually there even if I had to pay them, beginner’s guides for the newly diagnosed, and whatever else we could come up with that would be helpful.
• Finally, I’d hire some other members of the chronic illness community to do things like find useful links and research, contribute content, and do graphics and website upgrades/maintenance. I know that there are thousands of people out of work, but I think that part of my responsibility as an activist is to help our OWN community first, and only go outside for services if I can’t find someone within the community to do what needs done.

I know from experience that with the flexibility to work from home, when symptoms allow, most of us are able to do a lot more than we think is possible. In addition, the opportunity to be productive and contribute something helps immensely with the  emotional stresses of being sick all the time. It’s more complicated to have to manage multiple employees who need flexibility, rather than a single employee that can do the whole job; but that single employee has a chance at a traditional job, where the others have no hope of being hired by a company that only cares about getting the job done as cheaply as possible.

Now for part two . . . what CAN I do with the resources I have available?  In the next year I can continue to add more content and develop resources for the community. I especially want to add at least one article on how to tell whether a “member” site for various illnesses is a genuine forum for helpful resources or a “shill” site sponsored by someone with something to sell. I can update my “links” pages, and I can go ahead and start the newsletter I want to do without the autoresponder.

In the next five years? I have no idea, other than more of the above. Most everything else requires money, and I have no way of knowing whether the financial situation will change enough to allow me to do any of those things.

This post was written as part of NHBPM – 30 health posts in 30 days: http://bit.ly/vU0g9J

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