In a former life I had a job as a library page. It was a wonderful job: the people were nice, the work was pleasant; I was allowed to wear whatever I wanted (within reason) and I had access to soooo many books.
It was the first job I ever stayed at for more than a few months, and it shaped me in a lot of ways. More than anything, I learned a lot from the clerks and librarians, mostly older women who had been at the job for as long as I had been alive. They were just what you expect from library employees—sharp and funny, organized but still creative, thoughtful and aware of the people around them. They taught me a mantra, something to say to myself when there was a line at the checkout desk and I started to get flustered, or when someone discovered the book everyone had been searching for for weeks had been shelved in the wrong place and that was why nobody could find it. The mantra was:
“This is a library, not a hospital.”
In other words, nobody was going to die because the book was in the wrong place, even if it meant they had been waiting for it for weeks. Nobody would asphyxiate from waiting in a short line to check out their books, or bleed out from learning their books were overdue. In the library, there was never any need to panic or lose your temper. We were loaning out books. No one’s life was on the line.
I haven’t worked at the library for over a decade, but I took that mantra with me, adapting it to various other aspects of my life – “This is church choir, not a hospital.” “This is a birthday party, not heart surgery.” Sometimes you have to adjust the details a little. The point is, being able to remind yourself what is worth getting worked up over and what is not.
Maybe it seems ironic that I’m writing this blog post for a community of end of life doulas. We do see people die. A lot of the time, where we are actually is the hospital!
But I don’t think it’s ironic at all. One of the things I love most about spending time with people who work with the dying is the sense of perspective they seem to have, that people without any experience with death sometimes do not. My experience is that people who have learned to be comfortable around death are often better at enjoying life. Death is a big deal, and they know from experience that it’s going to happen no matter what. We only get so much time on earth with the people we love—so are you going to pout because parking was bad, or are you going to walk a few extra feet and be proud of yourself for getting errands done? Are you going to complain because your coffee order took too long, or savor it when it comes and consider what a privilege it is to have another person make a delicious warm beverage for you?
Life is full of frustration. Rush hour traffic, spoiled leftovers, people listening to music in public without headphones. And, you know… a lot of stuff that’s actually really bad. Sometimes you just have to ask yourself: Am I in a library, or a hospital? Don’t waste your hospital emotions on library problems. They’re not important enough for that.
