A new perspective on perspectives

I thought about writing more on this topic, then thought against it. Now I keep thinking about it so I am writing about it so I can focus on other things.

Come on. We may think our lives suck sometimes. Or in some cases, we may think that life itself sucks and there is no point to it. What gives us the right to be better off than others? My, that's a very selfless thought, one may say.

One simple way to turn thoughts around of our own life sucking is by seeing those that are less privileged in order to gain some perspective.

But everyone knows that. We’re just ignorant and stuck in our own privileged world and enjoy complaining about little things like our parents being too stern or when we don’t get what we want. We choose to turn away from realizing the pain and hardships of others.

Okay, instead of thinking about the negatives that others have, I propose that we think of things in a different way: these so-called unprivileged—those living in poverty, those who are sick or disabled, those who have lost family members, those who are politically oppressed, those who are physically or mentally incapable of doing things, those who have lost most of their family members—what keeps them wanting to live then? They don’t have what we have. Why do they fight every single day to breathe, to get that one drop of water, to wake up in the mornings?

Think about it.

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."

I remember saying to a good friend how I should have started a blog when I was in the hospital. She said she is glad I didn't. I was really struggling with coping at the time and it probably would not have been good to keep a written record to look back on of that time.

I think now I am going to occasionally write little stories and experiences from my lengthy hospital stay after my accident. That time period had a profound effect on who I am now and, similar to my birthday post, I don’t want to ever forget about “my roots”.

After only a few weeks in the hospital, I started becoming restless. I was losing it.

“This is Shawshank, man,” I would tell my friend. I was referring to The Shawshank Redemption, an amazing movie depicting prisoners in the 1940’s. What I meant by saying that was that I felt like I was in prison.

In the movie, Andy Dufrense, played by Tim Robbins, is wrongly accused of murdering his wife and then sent to a maximum security prison. I also felt like I didn't do anything to deserve my situation, yet I was doing time.

Just like a prison, I had no privacy because nurses or other hospital staff members were always entering the room.

Just like a prison, I couldn’t go anywhere because the colored tag on my wheels said I couldn’t go past a certain hallway—until I got the prison equivalent of “privileges for good behavior” and was then allowed to go outside the hospital into the courtyard. I couldn’t leave.

Just like a prison, I had to stick to a schedule and for quite some time, had to eat simple mashed food (and drink thickened water, but I’m guessing they didn’t have that in Shawshank).

There was no way out. I was stuck. The Shawhsank Redemption was real life for me.

Recently, I was told that I’m still stuck in Shawshank. A short dialogue from the movie:

Andy Dufresne: That's the beauty of music. They can't get that from you... Haven't you ever felt that way about music?
Red: I played a mean harmonica as a younger man. Lost interest in it though. Didn't make much sense in here.
Andy Dufresne: Here's where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don't forget.
Red: Forget?
Andy Dufresne: Forget that... there are places in this world that aren't made out of stone. That there's something inside... that they can't get to, that they can't touch. That's yours.
Red: What're you talking about?
Andy Dufresne: Hope.
Red: Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.

Later, Andy says to Red, “Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

Hope is stupid, I was also starting to think. It takes a lot of strength to keep hoping for things. It’s for the ignorant.

I had to be reminded that hope is a good thing. No good thing ever dies. Hope is what sustained Andy though his trials, and it is what got me through mine.

Once hope is lost, there is no middle ground. One may argue that one can simple accept things and move on, but if you can’t win something, you've lost it. You've been defeated. Hope doesn't mean being totally ignorant and believing things will be exactly normal and dreamlike. Hope means knowing that there is a capacity for things to change, to be better, and with this hope, one can use his/her abilities to work towards that.

They will ask me why I wasn't as great as Zusha.

It is told that the great Chasidic master, Reb Zusha of Anapoli, cried bitterly as he lay on his deathbed. His students, who had gathered around their master during his final hours, wondered, "Dear Rebbe, you have molded so many students and you have done so much good in the world. Why are you crying?"

The rabbi answered, "Soon I will no longer be here. I will be facing the Heavenly Court. They will not ask me why I was not as great as Moses was, because I was not supposed to be as great. They will not ask me why I was not as great as Maimonides, because I was not supposed to be. They will not ask me why I was not as great as the Baal Shem Tov, because I was not supposed to be. They will ask me why I wasn't as great as Zusha. And for this I do not have an answer."

God gives every individual certain abilities and talents. It is up to each one of us to find and use these abilities to the fullest. This does not mean that every person must familiarize himself with Torah like the Vilna Gaon, compose music like Beethoven, or paint like Van Gogh. The talents bestowed on us may not be the same as the ones possessed by those individuals. It is every person's purpose in life to find what treasures lay within him. He must then use those gifts to the greatest of his ability for the service of God and man.

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The piece above was taken from the following Jewish web site: http://www.innernet.org.il/article.php?aid=508

The above story often comes to mind but it was not until recently that I chose to accept it and follow it. During times of frustration, I suggest others read this story again.

Pretty much each week, I find myself extremely frustrated. If I hadn’t started buzzing my hair short again, I would probably be pulling it out and end up looking like Homer Simpson.

I have to apologize for my lack of posts over the last several months. There has been so much going through my mind and I have actually written a few posts and have them saved on my computer but have not posted them because they seem incomplete and scrambled to me.

There have been times over the past several months when I have been really down. “Why am I not doing so well?” I would ask myself. I have been working harder than all my classmates. I hardly get much sleep, I spend all day/night in my books or staring at a computer screen, I cannot remember the last time I did something fun, I have not exercised in forever, I am barely making it in terms of grades, I am unhappy with the way things are going everyday… the list could go on.

So what’s my problem? Comparing myself to others.

Constantly comparing the work I am putting in and the results I am getting to others has been very detrimental. I have to remind myself to compare me to me. Am I working to the best of my abilities? Or am I just fooling myself? Is there something I could do more efficiently? Why am I having trouble?

If we do the best that we can do, how can we be disappointed? We shouldn’t try to be as good as someone else, we should try our best to be as good as ourselves. Now, are we doing our absolute best? After calming down and realizing this simple concept, we can watch our efficiency and our contentment go up. I’ll read that above story again. Try it out.

Georgia Medical News

Oh sweet, I made it to the front page of GeorgiaHealthNews.com:

http://www.georgiahealthnews.com/2010/11/04/a-portrait-in-perseverance/

Video about me, "Hammad Aslam, 1st Year"

"A Portrait In Perseverance"
As seen on Georgia Health News
http://www.georgiahealthnews.com/2010/11/a-portrait-in-perseverance/

Written and produced by Sonya Collins, of the Health & Medical Journalism graduate program at the University of Georgia.

Life, plus 10 minutes... plus white coat!

The past month living by myself in Athens has been crazy. When I was telling my friend how I was going to live on my own, I told him my parents' worries and then my own ideas about living on my own: I can do pretty much everything, but it will just take me a little longer. Think of it as “life, plus 10 minutes”.

When I need to go somewhere, it takes me about 5 minutes to load my chair into the car or take it out and put it back together. So that’s about 10 additional minutes it takes to go somewhere. Going somewhere that is about 5-10 minutes away forces me to leave 20-30 minutes ahead of time. Getting dressed, taking a shower, and doing other things all take extra time, especially if I fall onto the shower floor and have to get myself back up, like what happened last week. A simple fast food run takes almost as much time now as grabbing a bite to eat at a sit-down restaurant did before. All this takes time away from doing other, more important things—like studying.

But is it manageable? Absolutely. This is “life, plus 10 minutes”, not “life is over”.

…

I wrote the above entry really quick one night during the first week of September (before I even wrote the last entry). I had no idea how to end it or if I wanted to post it, so I never did. At the time, I was a bit overwhelmed with things. I wasn’t doing quite as well as I had hoped in school and I was having a rough week. I was finding it hard to balance the obstacles of living on my own with finding time to study, and I was beginning to doubt myself. We had an exam coming up and I told myself I needed to chill out and focus, and that things were manageable. Yes, they would take a bit longer, but nonetheless conquerable. I knew that was true.

A few weeks later, we had our white coat ceremony, where we were basically inducted into the medical profession. In those few weeks before the white coat ceremony, I started to do better in school, I was getting more sleep, and I found ways to save myself a few minutes here and there (hence the lack of posts on here). Looking back at the entry I had written above, I think I have to assure my possible future patients that hopefully those “extra 10 minutes” added to everything I do won’t affect patient waiting time. :)

I continued to pursue my dream of medical school and decided to live on my own because I knew it was something I could do. It would be difficult, considering my circumstances, but I wanted the challenge, if only to prove to myself that it could be done.

I know several of you have asked for pictures of my apartment and my car (yes, I drive! If you didn't pick that up from the post above, haha). An amazing student at the Health & Medical Journalism graduate program at UGA is making a short video that will show y’all everything.

I never say quite what I mean, I never mean quite what I say

Since our school and curriculum is new and a few of my fellow students and I are not doing as well as we would like, the faculty decided to have meetings with us individually to discuss our progress, our concerns, and anything else. The precepts for my small-group learning sessions are the dean of our school and our amazing biochemistry professor. So, I got to meet with the dean one-on-one in her nice office.

One of the things she discussed with me was how I was very quiet and don't participate much in discussions. I told her that I had actually talked about this with a friend the night before. She noted how I don't speak much and when I do, I tend to speak quietly or with my hand in front of my mouth. I explained to her the irrational fear I have of running out of breath.

The accident caused my ribs to break and puncture my lungs and also somehow caused my airway and esophagus to drastically constrict. For a while, I could not eat solid foods, drink liquids of normal viscosity, or speak more than a few hushed words without having to pause to catch my breath. So, this changed me from a guy who talked so much that I would trip over my words to a guy who spoke less and just listened more. I did not want to seem weak or damaged, so I just wouldn't say anything at times.

When I speak, the things I say are insightful, the dean said, but I say them with reserve. I often mumble, too. Before, I would mumble because I couldn’t talk as fast as I could think. Now, I mumble because my mind thinks too many things and I’m hesitant with the words I choose to say. People also don’t seem to hear me when I speak to a group, perhaps because of my reduced lung capacity, so I keep quiet.

The dean said that this introspection was very interesting and it was good that I was able to figure that out on my own. She then asked me, “How is your confidence?”

I smiled and responded, “Well, I thought I was doing great and that I had no problem in that respect. Then I came here and was shown otherwise.”

As I wrote about in my post Compensate, people have doubted my capabilities since my accident. I choose to push past that and do whatever I want to do. Recently, though, this has been taking a toll on me. It seems like everyone here is so much more intelligent and so much more sociable than me. So, I take my place as a wallflower.

What will it take to let out the usual self? The only thing I can think of is gaining comfort. Comfort not only with my peers so I can speak up more, but with myself in the accelerated environment. I have been to one extreme—the brain injury unit of Shepherd Center, where a few of my fellow patients had to wear helmets so they wouldn’t hurt themselves or the sutures on their head—and now I must go to the other.

Oh, life on the brain injury floor was a trip. I remember not knowing the extent of my injuries and telling my doctor there, “I better be out of here soon. I’m starting med school in two and a half months!” I remember him and my nurses smirking when I said that and I wasn’t sure why. After two weeks, I was moved to the spinal cord injury unit because of the amazing progress I had made and underwent extensive speech/mental therapy and neuropsychological exams. I remember before I left, my neuropsychologist showed me my test scores and showed how much I had improved. Since I had improved so drastically, considering the extent of my injuries, I would definitely be even more ready for medical school when I started a year later than planned, he said. I’m not sure why I wrote all this in this last paragraph. I guess it’s to remind myself that I shouldn’t be so hesitant with things.