My daily question: What if…
It’s first day of the week and you are headed for work. You had a late night and the events of the weekend have taken their toll. Your eyes are aching and you are yawning widely. You know your day can be easier and this thought comforts you. You get to your workplace and immediately your inner self starts pinges you for morning rush — your favorite coffee! You had to the coffee machine, which is out of order. You head to the café, where for some reason coffee is unavailable. You start getting cranky and sleepy and wait for your soul soothing coffee. But this is all still bearable as workplace is calm and smooth and there’s no rush. It’s okay if I have to wait for some time for coffee, you comfort yourself. Maybe I can close my eyes for a while…
But just then you get pinged by your coworker for some tasks which you know are time consuming, boring and something you always despised. You look for a way out but there’s none. Moreover your boss stars nagging you for minute delay and you jump to your feet and rush to the tasks in question, forgetting completely your love of coffee and your sleepy eyes, cursing in your breath why does this always happen to you…
Does this story sound familiar? With few changes here and there, it will be. My precise story of today, is basically what everyone goes through every day.
I am a doctor and work in a hospital. This is something that occurs to me on almost daily basis and there’s no escape from it. You go on consults which you dislike, your feet are aching because you wore your stylish shoes that were not meant for this much running, and your head spins because of lack of sleep (read coffee), all the time thinking that why do my plans go wrong? Why is it that when it was hell certain that I would have ward day despite of that I have to go on consults? Just because I have to fill in for someone else all of the sudden? Because that someone can’t get off their comfy cushions and be in time? Why?????
And this nagging continues, even when all gets okay, even when you get your coffee, and even when your feet don’t ache.
But…
But then you see a patient, a young girl of only eighteen years of age, battling remission of acute myeloid leukemia (for those of you wondering what sort of alien term is that and don’t want to spend your energy googling it, let me tell you it’s a sort of cancer). And the sight of that patient, that thin, frail posture, that pale skin, dehydrated body, you forget all your nagging.
Next you see a small child, around 4–5 years of age, with body generalized swelled as much as to make him weigh a child 10 years older than him. His parents are standing beside him, and you wonder does your life have this much hardship, or even a minute fraction of it?
You go ahead and you see old patients being discharged home, on stretchers with NG tubes in their body, as they are unable to feed orally. Do you think this is any happiness of going home? In a state which if you put yourself in, you will feel nothing but misery and gloom?
Life is full of these battles, bigger or smaller, heavier or lighter, daily or often, but yes. Life was never a bed of roses, we learnt that since we were in school, but still we fail to cope with the workplace stress and its demands. We may not like our boss, the environment of our workplace, or even our job, but it is something that gets us through all the necessities of life and we should be grateful to it, at the same time improvising on improving it. I am witnessing all the extreme hurdles on almost daily basis and that has instilled in me a sense of gratitude, perseverance and motivation. Now I choose to smile in face of anything that comes along my path, and try to be a better person, a better soul, and reach out to others in any way possible. The idea of writing this piece is same, and I hope I have done it justice.
