Friday 4 November 2016

The word for today is.......Institutionalize


Institutionalize
ɪnstɪˈtjuːʃ(ə)n(ə)lʌɪz/Submit verb
past tense: institutionalized; past participle: institutionalized

1. establish (something, typically a practice or activity) as a convention or norm in an organization or culture.

"he institutionalized the practice of collaborative research on a grand scale"
2. place or keep (someone) in a residential institution.
"he was institutionalized in a school for the destitute"

You may ask why have I put up this word with its definitions.... well it goes something like this:

This week following a particularly nasty interaction with a member of staff and then sitting in my office looking out the window at the myriad of other corporate serfs creeping past in their cars, an interesting thought wandered through the vast sometimes empty expanse of my head.....

Said thought was....... Why have I not moved out of my corporate I.T. job of 34 years into something that better suits my personality..... and then it came to me;

<Drum Roll.....> 

The answer is ....... Institutionalization.... YES; I have been institutionalized, without me even knowing it has happened, well actually I probably did know, I just didn't want to acknowledge it.

Institutionalization also happens to people who have been in prison for an inordinate amount of time and when released cannot handle the world they have been thrust into.
Now please do not get me wrong, I am not trying to equate my job to prison life but I have still been institutionalized into the corporate world and the commensurate way of thinking with all its accoutrements - golden handcuffs.

A question was asked awhile ago by a friend of mine on facebook, that has also had me thinking for a long while:  "If money didn't exist would you still do what you do?" 
The answer is a resounding and emphatic .... NO!!

Over the years I have gained a number of ancillary skills outside of I.T. , I can make cheese, I can make fairly passable silver jewellery (See my Instagram site @metalsmith and also this blog - unashamed punt), I have a certificate in guesthouse management, I have a certificate in Project Management (although that is straight back at the corporate world) , and I know how to make chocolates.

So why am I not doing any of that or myriad of other ideas that also wander aimlessly through my head?

Up until this juncture in time I would have said "Who on earth knows - right now I certainly don't ........ "

That cogitation has been brought in a number of ways to a rather sudden, and in a way rather unpleasant fruition and I am now forced into a place of deep consideration that I have been dragging my heels over for a goodly period of time.

And so as a year comes to a close, all things that must change will change ........

Wyrd bid ful aræd*





* https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Wanderer_(poem)