The journey through the maze of life

One activity I remember doing with my brother and sisters when we were growing up on a rainy day, was competing to see who could solve the maze in their puzzle book first. For this sole purpose my parent we made to purchase 5 copies of the same book. Reflecting back we really were a competitive bunch and sibling rivalry was alive and well in our family.

Today mazes are made much larger and you can get some serious exercise at the same time.  One tick I remember using to out smart my siblings was to work backwards. It often worked until they cotton on to my method and began working backwards too.

However life is not like that, yesterday always lies behind us and tomorrow ahead, we can’t use the knowledge we have today to return to last year to solve the maze.  One of the temptations as a child I remember was to cheat and cross a boundary line to cross the line first, but each winning puzzle was careful checked to ensure no boundaries were crossed in order to claim first prize.

The maze boundaries pictured above look much more secure than those on the merger lines in our puzzled books growing up. From what I have seen of these mazes on television the hedges are head height of the average adult so there no cheating by peering over the top, the person in the maze must keep moving forward to make their way out and a lot of your success is based on memory.

Our memory of the past or the sum of our successes and failures are one of the keys to travel through the mazes that life presents.  We are required to remember the mistakes of the past if we are not to repeat them and fall into the traps. 

As a Christian the word of God provides clues and warning signs as we travel through the maze of lives. The bibles has laws, guidelines and principles I use to have me navigate through life. Others view the bible as an irrelevant law book and toss it out the window and run the risk of living a life protected by the principles I have in my life. That is a choice that God gives to mankind, the gift of free will, we we’re program to think and feel a certain way like a robot.  However that is sadly how many view his word.

Yet many laws that govern our nation are built on the principles taught in the bible. Australia laws as we have seen in my previous post have conquences if we chose to break the law.  Laws are designed to protect us from harm.  Just the hedges although confusing at times keep us from staying off path. 

I imagine it would be tempting to enter a hedge like the one in the above picture with a hedge trimmer to cut my way through, just like the temptation we had as children to cross the boundaries lines of the puzzle book.  I am sure some type of fine would apply if I chose to act on this plan.

Likewise there are principles to protect me as a client of disability services Queensland. The policies and procedures that underpin the Policies of the State government are often part of ‘an act’. That determined Queensland laws.  The laws as those presented in the bible are design to protect clients with a disability; their families and their support workers from harm.

For example everyone who works in the disability sector much hold a yellow card, including me as a volunteer.  As a holder of a yellow card and a person who has responsibility for the care of people with a disability, by law I must have a police check every two years to protect the people entrusted into my care.  As someone who overseas the finances of an organisation the government wants to make sure I am not going to take the money given for staff wages and go off and by myself a yacht. 

I have never herd a support worker who has supported me to complain about a police check every two years, in the same way the tell me the policy that prevents us form becoming  friends is ridiculous and yet both are policies written by organisations that support people with disabilities that are underwritten by law for our own protection.

I may think that the Ipswich City Councils decision to put parking metres in the town centre is stupid. However my person opinion does mean I don’t drop the required coins in the slot and display the ticket on the windscreen of the car to avoid paying a fine. Not to comply to policies that are derived from our state laws has conquences.

My annoyance is when support workers decide they are not prepare to work within the policies and procedures written to protect both of us is the put me at risk as well as themselves. Life isn’t always about us and what we ‘feel’ is ok or we ‘think’ is stupid like the council’s parking metres of the hedges we can’t peer over, our choices right or wrong sometimes effect the lives of others. In the disability sector ultimately that is the frontline workers and their clients.

One example of a policy workers tell me is stupid is wearing gloves for food handing. I don’t wear them at home. . . and just maybe I might agree, but even so like the Ipswich Cities Council decision to put in parking metres I am required to comply.  Gloves for food handling isn’t a rule picked out of the sky to make a workers life miserable is a policy that we board members (my workers forget I am a policy writer making me public emery number 1), are required to have under work, health & safety laws.  If a client gets food poising and dies and the bacteria  is proven in a court of law to come from a support worker and the organisation had no policy around food handling its me in court not them. So sorry I have little sympathy for workers who hate the feel of gloves.

Similarly foot ware often becomes an issue in summer, and in winter it I don’t want wet feet. If I take my shoes off and fall its my problem. Not sure there aware their just broken the law. Nor have they even considered my safety. If the slippy and can’t get up. I then have to put myself at risk and turn the shower off without the safety net of a workers assistance to correct my balance.  Than the need to explain why we both got hurt and then they can’t claim work cover.

No life isn’t all about us, we don’t get to carry the hedge trimmer into the hedge maze in the event we can’t find our way out the hedged. We too must follow the policies and procedures we are required to work within. Just like my siblings and I checking we stayed with in the boundaries of the maze puzzles growing so too checks are made to ensure polices are ahead too, as we navigate the mazes in our lives.

We can’t back track in life’s maze. If we fall its too late to put our shoes hack on and we’ve may be off work without an income. But it’s your maze and I can only direct you like me have a right too choice.