Skip to main content

What I Learned This Week

Sunday
We need each other.
*Context: A small group of friends spends the day together, and one of them feels refreshed after having done so.

Monday
We have more influence over other people's days (and even lives) than we are sometimes willing to admit.
*Context: A student cries in a meeting after being reprimanded by all six of his teachers, in the same room, for consistently annoying others.

Tuesday
Investing in others can be very fulfilling.
*Context: Students make much more of a teacher's birthday than he ever thought they would.

Wednesday
Medicine-- even in the assistant role-- is a field with very visible responsibility.
*Context: A student takes his first set of complete vital signs, and realizes that he is dealing with others' lives.

Thursday
We may not be able to control others' behavior, but we can move mountains with our response to it.
*Context: Someone says something unkind about a teacher in the presence of another teacher, and the listening teacher-- in a hurry-- says nothing. The listening teacher realizes later that this moment was wholly worth stopping for.

Friday
Growing older is a great thing for the person willing to learn from his or her mistakes.
*Context: A small group of people converse about their respective pasts. The members realize that they have firmer boundaries, and are far more able to handle life's challenges, than was true just five years ago.

Friday Two
Many Christians yearn for the church to do more for the needy.
*Context: Two people discuss the disparity between medicine in the United States and medicine in a country like Haiti.

Friday Three
Good music is soothing to the soul.
*Context: Good music

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Savior

This wasteland cold and dark runs free Its fearful creatures speak to me One fateful day one nudged my hand To set my eyes upon a tree He knew I could not understand For I was in his native land His signs became our common speech To lead me through the deadly sand Now stuck I saw him me beseech He could not lift me out to reach The firm foundation of a cave Outside the boundaries of this beach Withal, the beast became more brave To risk his own my life to save To carry me, its life it gave To carry me, its life it gave. This poem was inspired by Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." That poem, like this one, has four four-line stanzas of eight syllables per stanza. Its rhyme scheme is AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD.
Post a Comment
Read more

The Nice Guy Fallacy

I read part of a poem recently by one of my favorite poets. It reads: I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage The linnet born within the cage That never knew the summer woods. I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time Unfetter'd by the sense of crime To whom a conscience never wakes. Nor what may call itself as bles't The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth Nor any want-begotten rest. I hold it true, whate'er befall I feel it, when I sorrow most 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. At base, Tennyson contrasted a life of risk, and consequent pain, with one of security. He sides conclusively with the life of risk, and says he fails to envy those who have faced no hardship. I agree with him; and, for good or ill, his words are just as relevant today as they were in the nineteenth century. Like then, there are those today who choose to live their lives with as little risk as...
2 comments
Read more

Ghosts

Exercising at a gym seems to be pretty important in our culture, but it's kind of weird to see the social dynamics when you're there. Usually, if you're running an errand, you see others doing the same thing, going about their days and focusing on what's in front of them. The same thing happens at the gym, only everyone is relatively stationary. They don't really go anywhere, except from one machine or area to another. One might think this lends itself to lots of interaction between members, especially since they're all there for the same purpose, but it isn't true. Not only do people generally avoid talking to one another, but they also avoid even looking at one another. It is as though there is no one else there, even though there are dozens on any given day. Most people follow this unwritten rule, unless something in the environment-- say, two people wanting to use the same set of weights-- gives them common ground to interact, or unless they've alr...
2 comments
Read more