When you have ALS you have no choice but to put your care in the hands of others! The dignity you once had goes out the window. You very soon find out who is caring (aware) and who is not. It made me think, so I referred to the dictionary for meaning of the word [care] and the various synonyms! It’s amazing how you can put everyone around you into a box. I’ve taken the liberty to refresh our minds of the synonyms for care because empathy is such a generic word. I believe that this guides the way we live life and interact with others, so which box do you fit in? Often as parents, lovers, friends we cross many of these boxes, but ultimately our actions in life are governed by one dominant persona!

Care, Concern, Solicitude, Anxiety, and Worry mean a troubled or engrossed state of mind of from or about the thing that causes this. Care implies oppression of the mind weighed down by responsibility or disquieted by apprehension. Concern implies a troubled state of mind because of personal interest, relation, or affection. Solicitude implies great concern and connotes either thoughtful or hovering attentiveness toward another. Anxiety stresses anguished uncertainty or fear of misfortune or failure. Worry suggests fretting over matters that may or may not be real cause for anxiety.

I can fit my care givers into each box. You quickly become familiar with who fits into which box and how to deal with them. The ideal would be that you get those with Solicitude, but I’ve come to realize that this is impossible. It stems back to how we grow up and mature through life. I have carers that are anxious, their only concern “what happens to me if this guy dies on my watch;” they fiddle and are unaware of the real needs, they fret about the superficial. Is the t-shirt straight, is the duvet square and neat, is the tracheotomy centered?  It’s not that they don’t care for your wellbeing, they prioritize differently. To have Solicitude, means you need passionate people who love what they do, not as a job but as a way of life! There are unfortunately those that do what they do only to bring home a salary every month and those that are passionate about what they do, the job is more important than the salary. It’s those that are aware of what is really required to make the difference in someone else’s life!

This brought me to my life!   Life pre-ALS and life with ALS. I can say that my persona has not changed much, in fact, I would say it’s unchanged by ALS!  Standing, now there’s a Freudian slip. Sitting in my wheelchair on the lobby level of The Address Fountain Views I look across Downtown, it’s at an elevation of +65m above ground, I can’t help but be impressed by the number of buildings I’ve touched. Or I should say we’ve touched as a team! I’m moved, as I look across what was once a square kilometer of dirt. Fifteen years ago, I stood on the raft foundation of Burj Khalifa and saw nothing but dirt and contractors’ cabins between Sheikh Zayed road and Al Khail roads. Tower cranes dotted across the square kilometer that would soon become known as Downtown Dubai. I can’t say I’ve been involved from the beginning; I’ve only been involved since 2010. But it was the most meaningful contribution in my career! The start of the previous decade!

Many buildings were built and handed over to owners and operators during the first decade.  A few years into the second decade, financial crisis over, dust shook off, Mall fully leased we started developing again. This time I was involved! Within a short space of time there were amazing buildings being developed as part of the phase II build out of downtown. Three years ago I was standing in this location, a bare shell of concrete and steel, looking at many skeletons of buildings as they were rising up to take their rightful place within the masterplan, previously empty squares on the masterplan, now skeletons awaiting their skin to transform them into beautiful buildings within the urbanscape. Now sitting in my motorized wheelchair, in the recently opened The Address Fountain Views, I realized that is was with great solicitude and a touch of narcissism that I was involved with these buildings. The narcissistic side of me, happy that I had arrived, only for ALS to steal it all away from me! It stole the ability to explain, vocally, via sketch, the construction process and the redolence of work in process! It stole the successful career I was about to have. What remained, the solicitude a father has for his children!

I realized that solicitude had driven every decision I [we] made in every step of the development process! Even the recently burnt out Address Downtown, required solicitude to bring it back to surpass it’s former elegance. Aware of the money invested, returns yielded and most importantly the sense of community we were trying to achieve. The guest needs, the employee needs and the public use of the space around the building, improving life of the community around us!  But no one quite captures solicitude like Mohamed Alabbar, the awareness that customers are giving us their money three or four years in advance means that we should be developing the very best product that we are able to deliver and that the sense of community is exceptional! This takes awareness from 30.000 feet to 2 feet! Solicitude that comes only from passion! He has that in spades and is exceptional going from stratosphere to curb. One cannot do this without passion and of course confidence! After all you need to be extremely proud of what you’ve delivered, the difference you are making to your community, in his case the UAE, or it doesn’t matter! Admiring the children before me and those yet to be birthed! It is with sadness that you see when someone who fits into the Anxious and Worrying box, trying to complete something only solicitude could complete! The critical eye for detail lost, because passion is not the key driver! Earning a monthly salary and accounting for one’s time forces you to lose sight of what is important, the details!

The use of the word solicitude was replaced by empathy in the mid nineteen fifties. Empathy is to close to and often mistaken for sympathy; we all know that sympathy is the last trait we need! Often people with sympathy require sympathy and this doesn’t get the job done! It lacks awareness, passion and the drive to deliver the details that matter! Empathy encompasses to many boxes; solicitude is to the point! You have it or you don’t!

#ChallengeALSDXB