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The Day I Learned to Give Myself Grace
If it’s worth doing, isn’t it worth doing well?
“Once, I performed a rectal examination on a patient, but I kept thinking something felt wrong.”
She paused, and her college-age audience waited eagerly for her conclusion — after all, a rectal examination-gone-wrong story told by an ER doctor was more interesting than the weather or politics.
“It wasn’t until the examination was complete that I looked at my hands and realized I’d forgotten something important. I wasn’t wearing my rubber gloves.”
I attended four years of college, and it’s with sad honesty that I admit most of what I learned leaked through the mental sieve of busyness and sleep deprivation.
But there was one speaker who came to our school who I remember quite well.
Born in Lebanon, the tall, energetic, blunt woman started her presentation with an entertaining story about her life as a doctor, “Just to make sure you’re all paying attention.”
Then she launched into her talk.
“Today I’m going to talk about the old saying, ‘If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.’”
We looked at each other in boredom. It was just another lecture that we should work harder, try more, and pay better…
