Once, we dreamt of nobility.
Ask any child. He will tell you he wants to be a policeman. A firefighter. A doctor. And she will tell you she wants to be a teacher. A ballerina. An artist.
Once, we dreamt of making the world a better place. Some place more beautiful, more lovely, more worth living in.
Ask any child. And he will show you the dreams he dreams to grow into. Good dreams, sound dreams.
Once, I dreamt of becoming a painter. And a teacher. And a doctor. And then a missionary.
Ask the child in me. And I will show you those dreams were good.
But as we grow up, our marshmallow dreams sink into the hot chocolate muck of our reality, and the vocations we grow ourselves into no longer sound noble, brave, beautiful. We became doctors, and clerks, and cashiers, and students and businesspeople. And we even became famous people.
But they were of a different texture. Our dreams of childhood, made of delicate silk and fine gold, became rough and gritty.
Once, we dreamt of nobility.
In the shape of firefighters, policemen, teachers, doctors and painters. When we didn’t become any of those, it was as if the child in us, the child which once dreamt of nobility, died, too. And when we did become any of those, too often, we became disillusioned, too Efficient, and grew up too quickly.
How many people have you met who truly are crazy about their jobs? Just yesterday I met a little old silver-haired lady in thick-rimmed glasses who picked my two team-mates and I up from the hospital corridor, just randomly. “Are you three medical students? Not having lessons right? Come with me.”
She didn’t know any of us. For the next two hours, she whisked us from ward to ward, teaching us about her patients by their bedside. “I like to teach random people at any time of the day, wherever I am. It’s not important to know who I am,” she quipped. She was a little William Osler on steroids, and it wasn’t before long that we realised she was the most senior and respected doctor of that department.
She was clearly past seventy, and yet full of fire and bursting with child-like energy. “Don’t ever describe your patient as ‘that guy’. I find that very disrespectful. Make the effort to remember their names.”
She won my respect immediately.
Past seventy, and yet full of that child-like, dream-like quality in the spring of her foot-steps. Once, she dreamt of nobility. And she lives it well.
And we forget that the dreams we dreamed as children, which made us believe in truth and nobility and beauty, were the dreams we dreamed would become our vocations, the dreams we dreamed would make us better people.
Does your vocation make you a better person?
Was it the dream you dreamt of when you were little? More importantly, did it make you the person you dreamt of becoming. No, not famous or rich or first, even. But brave, and noble and kind.
I felt quite low the entire morning today. In my haste to get a job done, I didn’t realise how hurried I sounded with a patient before my team-mate pointed it out to me. Walking back from the ward, I thanked him for being so honest with me. I heaved a sigh.
“I’m so afraid of becoming dehumanised to patients, that I might wake up one morning and find myself no longer the same person I used to be,” I said.
“Well, you shouldn’t be the same person,” he laughed. I think he meant to say, you should be better.
Perhaps, we underestimate our vocations, and forget the power they have over us, that magical transformative power they had over us as children, to make us better people. We forget, that once, we dreamt of nobility- of goodness and courage and beauty.
In many ways, I am enjoying the way mine is shaping me, and not in the way many think. Before, I was afraid of the proud prick I might become in my journey of becoming a doctor. But the more I learn, the more ashamed I am of my lack of humility and servitude, and the more awed I am by the vastness of knowledge that lay before me.
Before, I think I would often imagine myself being in the limelight, doing the Impressive procedures “fit” for the intended image of a doctor, doing “important” things people expect doctors to do. But I like the way medicine is shaping me- that I can now hold a patient’s hand, or get him a glass of water, or draw his curtains, or adjust his bed, or help a nurse, or run a tiny errand for a doctor… and feel perfectly and completely fulfilled. Before, I would have been irritated by the mundane nature of it all. But I like how this vocation is shaping, changing me, and I like the way it has changed my definition of Nobility.
Once, I dreamt of nobility. And it has become my reality, albeit in a humbler, more precious way.
I just got posted to a different hospital a week ago to a different department. We’re no longer in Surgery, but in Internal Medicine. In the hospital I was previously at, I vividly remember one defining moment which etched itself like an engraved name onto the plaque of my heart.
There was an elderly man curled up on his bed, shrivelled like a prawn, making incomprehensible moans which everybody ignored. Before, I knew I would have walked past him without nary a backward glance. That day, however, I Stopped. I stopped, and I went back and I asked him what the matter was. He flailed his hand weakly in the air and moaned again. We could have dismissed him as being demented, but we stopped to figure out his gesticulations. I realised- he wanted his food at the foot of his bed which he couldn’t reach. I pulled his table to him, and my team-mate adjusted it for him.
“Is that okay?” I asked. He nodded meekly. I smiled, but just as I was about to leave, my team-mate Stopped to arranged his cutlery, and painstakingly unwrapped the plastic clingwrap stuck to his soup-bowl. That tiny act awed me-unwrapping that plastic clingwrap, that is. As we left, I sneaked a quick peek and caught a glimpse of his sheepish, bleary, droolly grin, as he held his spoonful of porridge to his wide-open mouth tremulously and served it right in. He was so happy.
That was my best moment.
It felt better than any pride-filled moment of glee when I answered a question correctly, or impressed my professor in front of the class. It felt better than my first time doing stitches in Operation Theatre. That was my best moment. He was so happy.
A moment of humility, of being transformed, of becoming a child, and dreaming again. Of growing into a Vocation, a dream which made me, is making me a better person.
And I realised, that it doesn’t take the Vocation itself to make one’s dreams and reality noble. It is the child-like, dream-like courage, goodness and sincerity one puts into the little which one does.
I remember, it would often be the arrogant, efficient senior doctor instead who disappointed me with his gruffness and egocentric attitude. (Of course, there are many inspiring senior doctors around too.) At the hospital I was attached to in the previous two months, I was even inspired by the cleaning lady who greeted everyone around her everyday, whatever their position or mood was. She brightened up the day of every single person who went by her.
Maybe she never dreamt of becoming a cleaning lady. Maybe her lifelong aspiration was to be a doctor, or a ballerina, or a world-renowned chef. Maybe that was her childhood dream. But you could never tell. Because for all the world could see, her nobility showed not through the nature of her job, but what she made it to be- a true vocation of her own, one she owned with pride. She filled it with her own fairytale goodness and made it noble as it was.
Once, we dreamed of nobility.
In the shape of firefighters, policemen, teachers, doctors and painters.
And perhaps it’s about time we remembered, that to truly dream and fulfill those dreams, to truly lived a life of nobility and truth, to truly have lived and succeeded, is…
… to laugh often and smile much, to see the best in others and oneself, to listen well and wholeheartedly… to leave the world a little better, a little more beautiful, a little more transformed, whether by a kind word or a genuine look or a humble act… to know that even one life was made more enjoyable because of the way you lived and dreamed…
Perhaps, that is to have dreamt of nobility, and lived it, too.