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Shakespeare (through the voice of Hamlet) said : To be or not to be, that is the question. But real question we need to ask is : To love or be loved.
Abraham Maslow, Jewish psychologist constructed a pyramid of needs. At the base were basic physiologic needs like eating and drinking water. At the top was "self actualization" which included morality, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts, and creativity. In the middle were things like loving and being loved.
According to Maslow, the higher needs are unique to humans, and the lower needs are common to all animals. A human can only focus on the higher needs once the lower needs are met. This was his theory.
Another writer of Jewish descent was Victor Frankl. He was a physician and became a Jewish prisoner in a concentration camp. His real life experience showed that starving individuals could be filled with so much compassion for other prisoners that they willingly gave their food to someone they felt needed it more or to a starving child - although he himself noted the numbing of emotions,feelings ...the soul...that could occur in such situations. However his real life experience showed that people can demonstrate high levels of morality even when the most minimal needs were not being met.
I believe Frankls experience, and think Maslows theory - while a nice way to designate a hiearchy of needs - is crap. As well, dogs for example, demonstrate lack of prejudice even when certain basic needs are not being met. The higher levels of Maslows pyramid may not be solely the domain of humans.
If granted a choice of only being loved or only loving, which would you choose. I posed that question yesterday to a group of high school students. They all answered : being loved is better.
I feel that is an unfortunately common but mistaken belief. It is so much better to love.
Studies show that a beneficial chemical cascade occurs when in love. From dopamine to oxytocin to serotonin. Blood pressure measureably improves. Conversely, when someone is full of anger and hate we see the opposite, and again blood pressure and heart rate alter.
If we are full of hate, and everyone loves us - we cannot feel it, we do not benefit from it, it does us no good. If everyone hates us, but we are fuilled with love for them - we have all the benefits. Some guy named Jesus , once said something about loving those that hate us and doing good to them.
In 9th grade a friend of mine and I snuck out of our house late late at night to meet two girls. I thought one of them was sooooo great. She had these marvelous slightly crooked teeth. This was the midwest and there were several inches of snow on the ground. We met them, ended up sitting on a curb and kissing a bit. Some time passed and suddenly I noticed 2 things: one our body heat had melted several inches of snow around us, and second my ass was frozen painfully. Usually quite sensitive to the cold, my feelings of "admiration" for this girl blocked all sensation of pain - I was feeling so good that I did not notice anything was feeling bad. Love does that.
I had to sit out a year for not matching last year. In the interim I have taught high school. The school has a great number of high risk, inner city youth. Lots of heavy gang affiliation : crips, bloods, La Mara, Latin Counts. Many kids have stab wounds, or have been jumped and beaten with bats, or seen family members killed in front of them. I announce at basketball games, and a youth was shot in the leg in front of the school Friday. I know some of you know exactly what environment I mean, for others of you that may seem unusual. Maybe everyone grows up this way now. I don't know.
Its not too different from how I grew up. I am of the bent that all humans are born loving and self actualized and only learn to be immoral violent people. When I was in early grade school I was a very nice kid - but from factors like being a boy but given a girls name, and being rather soft and effeminate at the time I got beat up a lot. I got beat up a good bit at home (my family had issues), at school and in the neighborhood. Sometimes it was just the upper cut to the gut that robs you of all breath, one time it was quite cruel when I was pinned down while another held a shotgun to my stomach. The last time was around 4 or 5th grade when this one older kid (who now is a DO in Arkansas) who was a mutant mass of testosterone, hair and muscle informed me at the bus stop one morning that we were going to wrestle - he had a pencil in my pocket and it broke off in my neck. At that point I decided to change - enrolled in karate and wrestling, got a set of weights to lift.
I hung with the wrong crowd, to add to my bad boy effect. One of my friends committed the biggest burglaries in the history of the town (circa 1978). Large drug deals were a norm. Many of my friends often traveled strapped. For me it all melted down in high school when one of these childhood acquaintances killed some people in a very bad way. If someone googles his name there are actually websites about him - it really was quite shocking. That is when I decided to clean up my act and "found religion".
Twice state kickboxing champ, once state wrestling champion, worked security in bars in my twenties, have been in virtually every martial arts magazine there is. I was rather muscular. I am near 50 now, and retain the training habits - frequently the high school kids call me Arnold Schwarzennegar etc. I currently do dips in the gym with an extra 180 LBS strapped on to a harness. In my twenties I was large and could be feared when I wanted to be. I had overcome the problems that caused me to be often bullied when I was a kid, but I had not discovered the key to happiness - to having life full to the brim.
In my thirties I became quite successful in business. I also appeared in a number of periodicals that were related to my line of work for various. I gained alot of money. I was large and in charge. I had not discovered the key to happiness.
Then one night I was enjoying a deep pleasant sleep. I vaguely heard my 4 year old son trying to rouse me while standing over my sleeping body, moaning d-a-d-d-y. I was almost awake when a shower of vomit cascaded over my neck and chest. I got up, cleaned him and myself up. Only later did I find it remarkable that someone had vomited (which I hate) on my neck, and even worse waking me from my much enjoyed sleep - and I did not feel the slightest bit of anger. It was because I love my son so much. Love makes even being vomited on not only tolerable, but can make it a full experience. I found great satisfaction of attending to my young sons needs early in the morning.
Some might enter medicine to make more money. Some may do it for the chicks and the power.
I do it, because it opens my heart to those that are suffering. It allows me to attend to people in their extremes. It allows me to love people. I have found money and power dissappoint. Or maybe rather, they just do not completely fill my days with what matters.
I love the kids at the high school I am teaching at. There is not one that I have any ill feelings towards. I seriously marvel at how much warmth I feel to all of them there. I am the poorest I have ever been financially. I find life an amazing financial struggle. Yet I am very happy. I am around kids who often face serious violence around them, who cannot afford to buy a coat when the weather is cold, who often lack food. Mostly these children lack good role models, and attention from someone willing to listen to them if nothing else. Its hard for a single mother who is working several jobs to listen to her children - I don't mean to make it seem like its a lack of caring on the part of their parent, its often just lack of time and energy. I find an opportunity to make someones life better every single minute I am at the school.
I cannot say they are always good. I find some teachers end up hating the students - spend their free time in the lunch room discussing how miserable the kids make them. I get the same crap - but I don't take it personally. I know that whether it was me or someone else that one bad kid would do the same thing. Its not me - its the kid. And its not most of the kids. If it was my first day on campus, and some kid yelled at me :Hey stupid.... is it me? no. How would they know I am stupid? They don't. Their mean comment has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with them. Its always that way. Likewise a doctor ends up bitter towards all patients when they take the actions of one sour patient personally.
I came back from my last set of interviews, excited about a prematch offer I received - until I stepped onto the campus, and I was saddened by the thought of leaving.
However medicine will also provide me ample opportunity to find large sources of people with real needs. It may be nothing more then just listening to them. It may be finding a way for them to obtain a lifesaving medication. Who knows. But daily people will come to me, people who are in need, and I will have the opportunity to love them.
For that I am grateful.
Abraham Maslow, Jewish psychologist constructed a pyramid of needs. At the base were basic physiologic needs like eating and drinking water. At the top was "self actualization" which included morality, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts, and creativity. In the middle were things like loving and being loved.
According to Maslow, the higher needs are unique to humans, and the lower needs are common to all animals. A human can only focus on the higher needs once the lower needs are met. This was his theory.
Another writer of Jewish descent was Victor Frankl. He was a physician and became a Jewish prisoner in a concentration camp. His real life experience showed that starving individuals could be filled with so much compassion for other prisoners that they willingly gave their food to someone they felt needed it more or to a starving child - although he himself noted the numbing of emotions,feelings ...the soul...that could occur in such situations. However his real life experience showed that people can demonstrate high levels of morality even when the most minimal needs were not being met.
I believe Frankls experience, and think Maslows theory - while a nice way to designate a hiearchy of needs - is crap. As well, dogs for example, demonstrate lack of prejudice even when certain basic needs are not being met. The higher levels of Maslows pyramid may not be solely the domain of humans.
If granted a choice of only being loved or only loving, which would you choose. I posed that question yesterday to a group of high school students. They all answered : being loved is better.
I feel that is an unfortunately common but mistaken belief. It is so much better to love.
Studies show that a beneficial chemical cascade occurs when in love. From dopamine to oxytocin to serotonin. Blood pressure measureably improves. Conversely, when someone is full of anger and hate we see the opposite, and again blood pressure and heart rate alter.
If we are full of hate, and everyone loves us - we cannot feel it, we do not benefit from it, it does us no good. If everyone hates us, but we are fuilled with love for them - we have all the benefits. Some guy named Jesus , once said something about loving those that hate us and doing good to them.
In 9th grade a friend of mine and I snuck out of our house late late at night to meet two girls. I thought one of them was sooooo great. She had these marvelous slightly crooked teeth. This was the midwest and there were several inches of snow on the ground. We met them, ended up sitting on a curb and kissing a bit. Some time passed and suddenly I noticed 2 things: one our body heat had melted several inches of snow around us, and second my ass was frozen painfully. Usually quite sensitive to the cold, my feelings of "admiration" for this girl blocked all sensation of pain - I was feeling so good that I did not notice anything was feeling bad. Love does that.
I had to sit out a year for not matching last year. In the interim I have taught high school. The school has a great number of high risk, inner city youth. Lots of heavy gang affiliation : crips, bloods, La Mara, Latin Counts. Many kids have stab wounds, or have been jumped and beaten with bats, or seen family members killed in front of them. I announce at basketball games, and a youth was shot in the leg in front of the school Friday. I know some of you know exactly what environment I mean, for others of you that may seem unusual. Maybe everyone grows up this way now. I don't know.
Its not too different from how I grew up. I am of the bent that all humans are born loving and self actualized and only learn to be immoral violent people. When I was in early grade school I was a very nice kid - but from factors like being a boy but given a girls name, and being rather soft and effeminate at the time I got beat up a lot. I got beat up a good bit at home (my family had issues), at school and in the neighborhood. Sometimes it was just the upper cut to the gut that robs you of all breath, one time it was quite cruel when I was pinned down while another held a shotgun to my stomach. The last time was around 4 or 5th grade when this one older kid (who now is a DO in Arkansas) who was a mutant mass of testosterone, hair and muscle informed me at the bus stop one morning that we were going to wrestle - he had a pencil in my pocket and it broke off in my neck. At that point I decided to change - enrolled in karate and wrestling, got a set of weights to lift.
I hung with the wrong crowd, to add to my bad boy effect. One of my friends committed the biggest burglaries in the history of the town (circa 1978). Large drug deals were a norm. Many of my friends often traveled strapped. For me it all melted down in high school when one of these childhood acquaintances killed some people in a very bad way. If someone googles his name there are actually websites about him - it really was quite shocking. That is when I decided to clean up my act and "found religion".
Twice state kickboxing champ, once state wrestling champion, worked security in bars in my twenties, have been in virtually every martial arts magazine there is. I was rather muscular. I am near 50 now, and retain the training habits - frequently the high school kids call me Arnold Schwarzennegar etc. I currently do dips in the gym with an extra 180 LBS strapped on to a harness. In my twenties I was large and could be feared when I wanted to be. I had overcome the problems that caused me to be often bullied when I was a kid, but I had not discovered the key to happiness - to having life full to the brim.
In my thirties I became quite successful in business. I also appeared in a number of periodicals that were related to my line of work for various. I gained alot of money. I was large and in charge. I had not discovered the key to happiness.
Then one night I was enjoying a deep pleasant sleep. I vaguely heard my 4 year old son trying to rouse me while standing over my sleeping body, moaning d-a-d-d-y. I was almost awake when a shower of vomit cascaded over my neck and chest. I got up, cleaned him and myself up. Only later did I find it remarkable that someone had vomited (which I hate) on my neck, and even worse waking me from my much enjoyed sleep - and I did not feel the slightest bit of anger. It was because I love my son so much. Love makes even being vomited on not only tolerable, but can make it a full experience. I found great satisfaction of attending to my young sons needs early in the morning.
Some might enter medicine to make more money. Some may do it for the chicks and the power.
I do it, because it opens my heart to those that are suffering. It allows me to attend to people in their extremes. It allows me to love people. I have found money and power dissappoint. Or maybe rather, they just do not completely fill my days with what matters.
I love the kids at the high school I am teaching at. There is not one that I have any ill feelings towards. I seriously marvel at how much warmth I feel to all of them there. I am the poorest I have ever been financially. I find life an amazing financial struggle. Yet I am very happy. I am around kids who often face serious violence around them, who cannot afford to buy a coat when the weather is cold, who often lack food. Mostly these children lack good role models, and attention from someone willing to listen to them if nothing else. Its hard for a single mother who is working several jobs to listen to her children - I don't mean to make it seem like its a lack of caring on the part of their parent, its often just lack of time and energy. I find an opportunity to make someones life better every single minute I am at the school.
I cannot say they are always good. I find some teachers end up hating the students - spend their free time in the lunch room discussing how miserable the kids make them. I get the same crap - but I don't take it personally. I know that whether it was me or someone else that one bad kid would do the same thing. Its not me - its the kid. And its not most of the kids. If it was my first day on campus, and some kid yelled at me :Hey stupid.... is it me? no. How would they know I am stupid? They don't. Their mean comment has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with them. Its always that way. Likewise a doctor ends up bitter towards all patients when they take the actions of one sour patient personally.
I came back from my last set of interviews, excited about a prematch offer I received - until I stepped onto the campus, and I was saddened by the thought of leaving.
However medicine will also provide me ample opportunity to find large sources of people with real needs. It may be nothing more then just listening to them. It may be finding a way for them to obtain a lifesaving medication. Who knows. But daily people will come to me, people who are in need, and I will have the opportunity to love them.
For that I am grateful.
