The purpose of taking our pills.

Last night I went out for a coffee with my friend and ex boyfriend from many years ago. We were meeting because he wanted to return a painting that I had painted. M was very patient with me he put up with a lot of the full force of my drug addiction the painting he returned to me was a blast from those times.

We started talking about an earlier post "The Memory of Making Meaning" we strayed off to the question of Quality of Life vs Quantity of life and how long do I want to live for if I can not have quality of life. M is not alone. I have had many discussions with PHAs about this particular post all of who are asking them selves the same question.

What is the purpose of taking our pills?

At the time of M's and my infection in 2002 most People living with HIV were not even thinking about Quality of life but rather just staying alive. HAART was a rather new medication possibility who's full impact had not quite been realized. When it come to quantity vs quantity of life, taking a pill and dealing with the side effects to obtain quantity is the easy part. Their is no magic pill for Quality of life. It takes work.

So the question becomes how do we as PHAs with all of our restrictions begin? It really does come down to that simple question. What is the reason you take your pills? For each of us the response will be totally different.

What each of us values will be determined by the sum of of our past experiences. We act out our values without even knowing it every single day. When our AIDS Service Organizations pisses us off it because one of our values have been tramples upon. When we feel joy happiness and love it is because our values have been empowered. So our emotions are a clear indication of what we value.

Part of living our values is being able to clearly identify them. For many this is not easy to do. For many we have forgotton what is truly important to us for we have forgotten how to live them after all many of us were expecting that we would not be living for much longer. Their was no purpose to live them. Many of us have assimilated the values of our culture. In North America Money, is a cultural value so when asked, many people will automatically say they value money. This does not necessarily make money a personal value. Money can be the cause of many peoples grief within our community because simply put this is not our personal value.

So how does one go about clearly identifying your personal values? Well, you could drop me a line HERE. If you are a person living with HIV / AIDS. I am willing to take you through a values exploration. It takes about a half an hour.
That being said another way that works very well is your bank book. Pull out your bank statement and categorize your purchases over the past month. As money is a cultural value it will be a good place to dig for personal values. What you spend your money on is a good indicator of what you value.

Begin with the end in mind.

Often many people have no idea where they want to end up in life. For so long we have had no reason what so ever to dream. Without our dreams we have no goals and with no goals we are clueless as to how to manifest our values.

Dreams and values go hand in hand. So I ask you today to dream. Dreaming is never set in stone. But having an idea of what we want out of life or how we want our lives to be different, but are not willing to take the necessary steps it takes to move forward. It is necessary to dream about our futures in detail. Imagine all the feelings that are associated with your dreams. As PHAs I think we have forgotten how to dream.

What is the legacy that you want to leave behind?