“Get some sleep, tomorrow is going to be amazing”.
It seemed a weird thing to hear in my own head, this random thought from the middle of nowhere. Why was tomorrow going to be amazing? I had a 12 hour day for work, which is not unusual.
Yes I was seeing some wonderful friends (all my patients are friends as far as I’m concerned) and the day didn’t look to be super stressful. But I couldn’t figure out what was going to make it amazing.
But somehow it was.
I awoke feeling positive, which is not my usual state upon awakening. I felt like the world was a better place somehow. Kinder, more aware, more enlightened. I felt a greater love for my wife and children, and a greater desire to serve with whatever gifts I have been given. I decided that I was going to see with different eyes today.
And so I looked for things that were amazing, and I found them everywhere.
It was amazing that I was alive, given some of the dumb things I have done in my life. It was amazing that the technology in my phone that woke me up was unheard of just a few short years ago.
It was truly incredible that my car contains and controls the power of a thousand explosions a second to allow me to travel faster and easier than I ever could otherwise.
And the realizations just kept on coming.
I realized that the thousands of people who I drove with on the freeway were all able to get where they were going without hitting and hurting each other. When you think about it, that’s incredible.
When I got to work, I was able to leverage even more technology to coordinate and control the actions of the day. As a child I would imagine such capability, and wonder if I would ever see the day where it was possible.
I realized that I am living in a time that the childhood me could only wonder and dream of.
And then as I worked with patients, I came to marvel again at this wondrous form we call the human body. Its ability to function, to act, to heal, and to heal others. Our hands, that can help, console and bind up the wounds of others.
Our eyes that see 24 frames a second, and the brain that makes sense of that data, creating a three dimensional structure replete with content, context and chronology.
Our hearts that beat without a single thought, the blood which exchanges oxygen and other gases. The senses that allow us to make sense of the world in which we get to learn, grow and evolve.
All of this, that I have taken for granted, came into focus in one glorious day. I understood like I’ve never done before the inestimable blessings that surround me every day, and to which I had seemingly been blind.
Until I decided to see. One decision, one thought, one life changed.
I pray you can find this change too.
Because it’s amazing.
-- Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings