After years of playing soccer, I developed some lifelong back injuries. When these back injuries start to act up, nothing else matters.
I just need to find relief from the back pain. It makes thinking about being productive at work or grocery shopping, or cleaning my room or running household errands, feel completely trivial. If I can find relief for my bad back, then I can very quickly refocus on the important stuff again and work productivity increases, I feel stronger and more energetic and ready to take on the world. So, the reality is that my bad back is as important as everything else that I consider the “important stuff”.
Santa Clara County has begun to embrace a “whole person” model when it comes to providing services to its community. This approach is long overdue and will hopefully provide a more well-rounded approach to helping any individual. The theory is that you can’t be successful in whatever way you define success without addressing your overall needs. In other words, your mental and physical health is as important as your housing needs, your financial needs, your safety needs, etc. If any one of these components that make up the whole person is ailing, then everything else will eventually fall apart too. Santa Clara County is trying to figure out how to address all aspects of the individual in the hopes that some of the burgeoning crisis in our community will begin to dissipate. It’s like relief for a bad back. Hopefully they will find some long-lasting pain remedies for the housing crisis, the cost-of-living issues, and the physical and mental health issues that seem to be increasing in our county.