So I was at the local children’s hospital volunteering at an in-patient unit, where I mostly play with sick kids and their pent up siblings.
One especially memorable patient was a two month old baby who was born prematurely, and she was TINY. (It seems funny to emphasize tiny but putting it in big letters) Anyways, her mom was out running some errands and the nurses needed somebody to keep an eye on her.
I’m pretty sure all babies hate me, but I figured I wasn’t the first clueless guy who held a fragile infant, so I sat with her on the rocking chair. She was behaving for a while, until something apparently snapped and she turned bright red, cried non-stop, and generally acted like the world was ending. And of course, we were in a hospital, so for all I knew her world was ending. I panicked and pretty much destroyed the nurse call button.
The nurse calmly explained to me that she was probably fine and that she regularly had these tantrums. She made some unhelpful suggestions like: keep rocking her, give her a binky, talk to her.
So I sat there for the next hour or so rocking her as she periodically broke out in tantrums. No matter what I did she wouldn’t stop crying, though I think she occasionally stopped when she got tired or bored of it. It was probably the most helpless hour of my life.
When my shift was up, I left the baby in the crib and hurried down to the volunteer office to sign-out of my shift, eager to leave behind the most powerless hour of my life. But I was also feeling something else, and for some reason I had to go back.
So I went back to her room, sat and rocked with the baby some more. And she cried some more. Eventually, the nurses had to do some procedures on the baby so I got kicked out.
On my way home, I got to thinking about why I went back to that baby. I didn’t go back so the nurses could have a break from taking care of the baby, they were probably tired of an overreacting baby and would have left her alone. I didn’t go back for the baby, since I’m sure that I did absolutely nothing helpful for that baby. I didn’t go back so I could tell you what a caring person I am, I know you don’t care.
I went back, because I wanted to.
I watched a documentary called “Don’t Quit Your Daydream” about a couple of musicians who make a last ditch attempt to achieve their dream of becoming professional musicians by setting out on a cross country road trip. Their plan is to create a new song with a local artist at every new city they reach. Basically, the point of the documentary was to encourage you to be ok with desperately chasing your daydreams, even if everybody else thinks you’re going nowhere.
The idea was way better than the actual documentary, but it had one good analogy. When you’re on the stage performing and all the lights are on you, you can’t see the crowd, so you don’t know whether there are thousands of fans, just a handful, or none. Regardless of how many people are out there watching, you have to perform the same, and this should be easy if you’re doing what you’re doing for you, and not for the fanfare, the love, or the praise.
I really believe that life is about other people. It’s about lightening the load for your friends, caring for helpless babies, and inspiring others everywhere you go. May Sarton had a quote:
“There is only one real deprivation, I decided this morning, and that is not to be able to give one’s gifts to those one loves most.”
Even though I am an introvert that gets overwhelmed by being with others, my best memories, both from my life and just on a day-to-day basis, are always the time spent with others.
But helping people doesn’t have to be the goal. Instead maybe when you’re really following your heart and doing something you love helping others is an outcome.
So maybe, life should be a lot like performing at a concert when you don’t know if anybody is watching. Even though life might be about performing for other people, whatever you do has to be for you, and make you happy.
If nobody else was watching, what would you do?
from ken
Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com
photo by Akash k
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