The Kindness of Mastering Your Craft
The following lovely vignette came to me via James Clear's newsletter. It highlights how each of us, and not just physicians, in our own unique way, can be kind to others, or the world, by nurturing the unique gifts we all have and directing those gifts to the world through commitment and mastery.
"Investor Rick Buhrman on the kindness of mastering your craft:
INTERVIEWER: What is the kindest thing that anyone's ever done for you?
BUHRMAN: ... our oldest son, Theo, who just turned seven, spent the first six months of his life in several NICUs. He was eventually helicoptered to Indianapolis at Riley Hospital for Children. And while we were living in that NICU for almost a half a year we saw a lot of kids who passed away. Most of those kids were not as sick as Theo was.
I don’t know exactly why Theo survived, but I know that a major part of how he survived was because for several decades leading up to that moment, numerous nurses, nurse practitioners, respiratory therapists, doctors, surgeons had committed themselves wholeheartedly to mastering their craft. I can give you tons and tons of examples of these people. And I know that in the moment, it wasn’t necessarily viewed as kindness.
But maybe in some sense, the kindest thing that all of us can do is to pursue something radically that in some way is in service to others, because you just don't know how it's going to change the trajectory of human life. And so for all of those medical practitioners, none of whom I'm sure are listening to this, I owe everything to, because they gave me the gift of being Theo's dad."
Hope your week is a great one😄
