I guess that last growth spurt isn’t happening. That modeling contract keeps missing my mailbox (and I’d need A LOT of waxing). That rich, deep, baritone voice will elude me. I’ll settle for an endless supply of band-aids and show myself the door.
The recent happenings in the United States Senate illustrates the point. We had two sides completely talking over and around each other, and a president with a need for attention that rivals a spoilt toddler. I fail to recall a “debate” where so little was actually discussed about the problem(s) at hand. The debate was disjointed, much like Kevin Pollack performing a Christopher Walken impersonation. It would have been funny had we, the people, not been held up in the middle of it.
We operate in a different reality. To make this point, I would tell my kids the “There’s no ‘I’ in team” line. I would follow it up, very much with a wink and a nod, “But there’s an ‘I’ in ‘quit!’”
But experience adds an extra level of understanding. Your mind might believe it, but shared experience makes the GUT believe it.
You have a mirror. Use it. Please engage in some healthy and regular introspection. Please do so when things are going poorly and doubly when things are well.
What has become increasingly clear to me is that I am less concerned with titles, and I am more concerned with who is actually best suited to do the job.
Even as an attending, I relied heavily on our nursing staff to lean about what we could do to help patients, and how to do it more efficiently. I was constantly learning from the nursing staff and leaning on their expertise.
“Try to tell them about it, they’ll stare at you with those big round candy eyes. They won’t understand zip. It’s like trying to tell somebody what chocolate tastes like.” -Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
