This morning I drove my kids to school because my son had a bulky project to take in (we are ordinarily school bus people). As we were heading out, the radio was playing. My daughter said, “I love this song,” and turned up the volume. When the song was almost over she said, “Can we start this song over?” That made me chuckle because kids are so used to iPods these days, that they don’t realize songs on the radio can’t be “started over.”
I once attended a talk about adolescents, where the speaker called them the “control-alt-delete generation.” Kids expect to be able to start over any time they want. I can think of many situations in life where a control-alt-delete feature would be nice.
What about with diabetes? Don’t we often wish we could control-alt-delete our blood glucose and start over? While we can’t necessarily undo the diagnosis, we can “check and correct.” The wonderful thing about checking blood glucose levels at home is that it keeps us informed. This information (blood glucose readings) helps us make decisions. Yes, it would be great to just be in our target range all the time, but that’s not reality. Rather than beat myself up for a reading I don’t like, my version of a control-alt-delete is to correct the blood glucose and learn from the experience. Eventually that scenario – whatever it was – won’t cause me the frustration as often.
I really wish there were a control-alt-delete for saying the wrong thing – in the meantime I just apologize and hope for the best. Where could you use a control-alt-delete?