Elm Bank

“There are two ways of exerting strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.” 

     - Booker T. Washington 

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I’ve been thinking a lot about what to write this week, and I can’t think of anything good, so instead I’m going to share a story my friend Amulya wrote about me. 

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It was the fall of 2005, our senior year of high school, and our cross-country team had one of its final meets of the season at Elm Bank Reservation. Ken was one of the faster runners on the team, and I was one of the slowest, but on this fateful day that was going to change. 

During warm-ups, for whatever reason, Ken approached me and he told me - he didn’t ask - but told me that he was going to run with me, and more specifically let me draft off him for the entire race – breaking the wind for me and allowing me to run faster. 

At first I thought Ken was kidding, actually. Why would he slow down and sacrifice his race just so I could shave a few meaningless seconds off of mine? In the answer to that question, as many of you know, lies the essence of Ken. 

As the race began, I started off in my usual position at the back of the pack. But with Ken leading the way I felt myself getting stronger, mentally and physically, with every stride. Together, we continued passing runner after runner until the finish line, and when it was all over I had surpassed my personal best by more than two minutes. As euphoric as I was in that moment, nobody there was happier than Ken. 

Never before, and not since, have I felt that same exhilaration of exceeding all of my own expectations. My best friend helped me realize something I never thought was possible and more importantly, reminded me of the incredible power of relationships. 

-- 

I loved where Amulya wrote, “Why would he slow down and sacrifice his race just so I could shave a few meaningless seconds off of mine? In the answer to that question, as many of you know, lies the essence of Ken.” Sidenote is really just an attempt to understand the essence of Ken, so I figured this would be a good story to overanalyze. 

I had thought about pacing Amulya through a race all season, but I wasn’t sure if it would just be embarrassing for him or if it would even help at all.  But I remember something about that day feeling right, and about a mile into the race I realized how epic this day would be. 

We were going around a sharp turn in the woods, and he told me to pick it up. I remember at that moment having one thought going through my head, “That’s what I’m talking about.” From there we picked off runner after runner, all guys that Amulya never races with, and he was flowing past them effortlessly. 

There was this indescribable energy flowing between us with every step we took. An energy greater than either of us could experience individually.

Sidenote - I’ve been sitting at this coffee shop for a couple hours trying to articulate exactly what this energy, flow, or spirit is, but I can’t explain it. I know that it’s the sort of energy that makes life worth living, and that it’s the sort of energy that can only come through supporting the dreams and lives of others. I know that it’s that energy that makes me believe life is about relationships. Maybe you can describe or articulate this energy for me? If so, please comment! For now, I’ll have to think about it more. 

See you on the other side. 

from ken

That was in the beginning, there was a hum

Today is the first day of the rest of your life, what will you do with it?

In the beginning...

That’s the question that awakened the writer within me last summer. In that first post, I raised the idea that you should stay in the moment and love your life now. It’s too easy for people to think: my life would be so much better if I had a job or my life will be exactly what I want as soon as I find a great woman.

Of course, this is not a novel idea, people have been talking about it, probably for about as long as people have been talking. I recently read the classic novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the take home message is that you can easily ruin your life by mindlessly pursuing goals. Clearly, people are aware of the dangers of obsessing about the future and not doing things you love in the day to day.

Knowing it is one thing, but living that life is a completely different plane.

My perspective has come a long way since that first post. I don’t know if it’s much different, but it’s certainly come a long way. I’ve written about 80 posts, read about 40 or 50 books, and spent countless nights sitting in the dark thinking about life. Sidenote – this was my favorite post Thank you running, and my favorite book was The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Both are my favorites for the same reason – they bleed emotion, and that’s what good writing should do, it should be infectious with soul.

This is why I love artists. I don’t particularly love art. I can’t remember the last time I went to an art museum, and I probably couldn’t tell you the difference between Mozart and Van Go. That said, to pursue something off the beaten track, it takes a whole lot of resolve to say, no I’m not going to follow the track set out for me by society. Instead, I’m going to carve out my own path, and work way harder than other people have to, so that I can live my dream out, every day.

I spent the other day filming a Justice Conference promo with two inspiring artists, Nate and Jarod. I’ve never filmed anything, so it was a novel experience to work with them, and to see into the eyes of film-makers. They had day jobs, but they also spent their weekends making films, trying to launch a career in film making. I would consider myself to be a hard working person, but if I work a ten hour day, I’m probably complaining about it all night. Here were these guys, waking up at 6 AM on a Saturday, shooting all day, wracking their minds to figure out how to reach people through their art, scavenging the Mt. Hood trails to find that perfect one second shot of me running between some trees.

As I saw into their day and heard their stories a little bit, I saw more. I remembered, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life, what will you do with it?” Seeing Nate and Jarod that day, I saw two guys who were really alive, and on fire for their dreams. More, they weren’t preparing to live their dreams, they were living their dreams, that day. They spent the day creating their artistic vision into reality, so they could communicate a small message of hope to the world.

As for myself, I feel like I need re-evaluate my life a little bit. When I spent the day with Nate and Jarod, I left inspired, knowing that someone out there was living the dream, but where did that leave my own life? If someone spent a Saturday with me, would they leave inspired, knowing that someone out there was living the dream?

So, today is the first day of the rest of your life. What will you do with it?

from ken

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

Med School Personal Statement

The following is a draft of my med school personal statement. I hope it will make you think: This person wrote something slightly less boring than the million other personal statements I have read, and it is clear why they want to be a physician. I would like to interview this handsome gentleman for a position in my medical school.

It all started, just another day in the life of Ken Noguchi. Kicking back on the picturesque quad of Kenyon College. Lush green grass, tossing a Frisbee with friends, and passing the hours drinking cheap beers…

Actually, reality was more like: long days holed up in the stuffy science quad, tearing through stack after stack of flash cards, and bonding through suffering with my fellow pre-med friends. One spring day, we took a study break to check our PO boxes. I was hoping for a care package from my mom, some candy to fuel my late night studying.

Instead I found a small postcard. It was a notification to attend Kenyon College Honors Day, the yearly awards ceremony, so I could receive an award.

Fast forward to the day of the ceremony. I was shaking in my seat. The short postcard told me to expect an award, but I couldn’t help thinking it was one big joke. Being a self-proclaimed late-bloomer, this was my first time ever receiving an award without the word “participation.”

In the first half of the ceremony, the dean presented the departmental awards. I received the Robert Bowen Jr. Prize, the top Biology award, and I was zoned out in my own world after receiving such a high honor from my professors in the Biology department. Before I knew it, we were at the last part of the awards ceremony, when the dean began announcing the prestigious collegiate awards, reserved for those taking a leadership role in influencing the actions of the student body. Still a little zoned out, I started hearing these words:

“The Humanitarian Award is given to a student who has made a significant contribution to the general welfare of others. Described as being “radically transformed” in the past year, our winner became involved in the community through Justice Week, a week of programming dedicated to service in the global community.

He found himself inspired by the work of Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health, an organization dedicated to providing healthcare for the less fortunate in Haiti. With that in mind, he began planning a student service trip to Haiti for Spring Break 2010. In the midst of fundraising for this trip, a massive earthquake hit Haiti. Despite cancelling the trip, he shifted his focus to education and fundraising for Haiti. He quickly organized a well-attended forum focusing on global, political, and economic injustices at work before the earthquake. He continued to connect the entire Kenyon Community to the Haitian plight, raising over $2,000 to send to Partners in Health.

In the past year, he also served as a student leader for the Koinonia Programming Board and brought four panels of the AIDS Quilt to Kenyon for World AIDS Day.

Please join me in congratulating Ken Noguchi, the first winner of the Humanitarian Award.”

I was only half-listening in the beginning, but as I started hearing about Haiti, I realized, “Whoa, they’re talking about me.” I took a breath to recount my radical transformation.

I thought about my past.

I kicked off my first Kenyon semester with a 2.7 GPA. That year was a reality check. Seeing my other pre-med classmates fly past me with honor rolls and distinctions, I realized that if I was serious about medical school, I couldn’t just cruise through on natural intelligence.

I slowly got my act together, studied how to excel at college, and worked hard. From there, my GPA improved every semester until I reached a 4.0 in the fall semester of my senior year, I wrote and published a bench science honors thesis on bacterial physiology, and I became a campus leader for social justice. I attached my identity to becoming an advocate for Haiti, a country decimated by global injustices.

I thought about my future.

I love medicine, and its ability to give people hope.

I remembered a patient I met while shadowing Dr. Simon Robson in a liver clinic. She was a drug addict, hoping to prolong her life and take care of her two kids. She was slowly making positive life changes, but she also had endstage liver disease. Without a new liver, those small steps were all going out the window.

I remembered all the patients I saw with Dr. Catherine Allan in the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. Many of her patients hadn’t even been given a first chance at life. They were victims of mutant genes, born with structural defects in their hearts. Dr. Allan told me that she saw very few happy endings. If her patients survived their stay at the hospital, they would still be in and out of the hospital for the rest of their lives.

I knew that I had been lucky. I never struggled with anything as difficult as drug addiction, nor had I ever been diagnosed with a life-threatening genetic disorder. Sometimes I wondered why I had been fortunate enough to have Biochemistry be my greatest struggle. Dr. Robson’s patient would have to be incredibly lucky to get a rare liver transplant. Dr. Allan’s patients would have to be similarly lucky and show an unexpected improvement from heart surgery.

That moment, sitting in the auditorium, at Kenyon College Honors Day, when I heard the words, “Please join me in congratulating Ken Noguchi…” I was proud of how hard I had worked. But I also knew that the gods of fate must be smiling. I hoped my life could be about helping others feel lucky.

from ken

Are you thinking about something? Write about it and post it here! Email me! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

Paulo Coelho book review

I recently read a couple books by the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, The Pilgrimage and The Alchemist.

Coelho has an interesting story. As a child, he longed to be a writer, but his parents disapproved, so he instead ended up in law school. He dropped out after a year and quickly picked up a career as a songwriter. About ten years past, and he had a spiritual awakening while walking a Christian pilgrimage route in Northern Spain. He realized that he was living a satisfactory life, but not living out his true dream of becoming a writer. Within a year, The Pilgrimage and The Alchemist followed.

The Pilgrimage is an autobiography/novel about Coelho’s Northern Spain pilgrimage. He meets a guide that takes him on the treacherous journey as he learns reflective life practices along the way.

The Alchemist is by far his best-selling book, attaining a Guiness World Record mark of most translated book by a living author. It's a fable about a young shepherd who leaves his comfortable life behind to search for treasures hidden in the pyramids of Egypt. Only about 150 pgs, it’s an easy read, and it definitely left me feeling uplifted. I highly, highly recommend The Alchemist.

There are so many ideas I want to touch on from these books, but I’ll focus on just one for now. I wanted to talk about something that relates to the whole basis of The Alchemist, which starts from a young shepherd’s recurring dream. The shepherd can’t shake this deep-down desire that he’s supposed to chase down some distant treasure, and even though it sounds crazy, he finally builds up the courage to depart on the journey.

As for my "journey" of becoming a doctor, I have a similar scene that scrolls through my head every once in a while. I wouldn’t say it’s why I want to be a doctor nor would I call it a recurring dream, but it’s just an image that’s been stuck in my head for a while. I’ll explain:

I imagine myself walking the halls of my Pediatric Intensive Care Unit in the late hours of the night, maybe 1 or 2 AM. The rooms are dark, except for the dimmed hall lights. I run into a dad struggling with the loss of his only daughter. For the fifth time that day, I go over the ever worsening white blood cell counts of his daughter, and we get to talking about his life. We sit down, I pour us a glass of gin, or coffee, whichever is more available. He talks about his life, and I sit there listening. He might not decide to do a complete 180 with his life, but he thinks about it. And maybe the seed is planted for future change.

If you’re wasting the time to read this blog, odds are probably good that we’ve had a chat like this. It’s probably my favorite thing, speculating about life. I've seen hospitals, with emotions running high, as a place that opens the door for such thoughts. I want the opportunity to work somewhere that I can support people confronting these struggles, literally life and death. That would definitely be my dream job.

When I explain why I want to go into medicine, I don’t really talk about this scene because it doesn’t make a lot of sense. But the image is always in the back of my head. And I can’t help but be struck by the last line from The Pilgrimage:

“I guess it is true that people always arrive at the right moment at the place where someone awaits them.”

Hopefully one day in my future, I’ll be at the clinic at the right time.

from ken

Are you thinking about something? Write about it and post it here! Email me! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

Where to next?

Recently an old friend emailed me, and shared with me his struggles about leaving college and finding that he lacks a sense of direction. I wanted to thank this friend for reaching out! It helps me in my writing and sharing to know that others have these same struggles. I also believe writing to be the most honest and cathartic form of communication.

It seems like it would be great to lose the chains of college, and just live for your own direction. Of course, this is only true until you really realize, “Oh shit. I have to determine my own direction.” That was a scary thought for me. Through college I got used to professors having expectations of me that I fought to fill. The praise and acceptance of both my peers and superiors was addicting. I just wanted other people to tell me I was doing a good job. People did, but it left me feeling hollow.

In my experience, one of the best feelings in the world is to feel like you are living for a purpose greater than yourself.

I felt like this when I spent a summer in Wyoming. I sacrificed my time and fun to run ninety mile weeks, week in and week out in the high and dry Wyoming air. Some days, it was more painful than others, and it inflicted a sort of mental anguish that was far greater than the physical toll of a solo 20 mile long run. Every morning I still beat the sun out of bed, and ran. I did this for my teammates. I placed my hopes in the dream that we would be running at nationals that fall.

I also felt like this during my junior year of college. That year was my hardest year academically. I woke up, ate breakfast, studied, went to class, studied, and went to sleep. Literally, if I was wake I was probably trying to cram in one more fact about RNA polymerase or rotational velocity. Was it necessarily the best thing for my life? That’s hard to say, but I know that without that year my dreams of going to med school would have vanished faster than my dreams of running at nationals.

In hindsight, I don’t know if either the goal of competing at cross country nationals, or going to med school were necessarily “good” goals. But I believe the bottom line stands. At those times of my life, I suffered, but I was also extremely satisfied because I knew that my life had purpose, and that there was something out there more important than my selfish needs.

I certainly lack that direction now. Being out of school, one of the things I miss most is the community of students. Sharing the suffering of cramming for a biochem midterm, or writing a senior exercise about the biological implications about the hydrogenase isoenzymes is one like no other. Having had that extrinsically instilled sense of direction drilled into me for the past four years, my life now feels aimless and lost.

But I think losing that guidance and being aimless for a while can be valuable. Eventually I hope to be back in school. However, when I return, it will probably be as a research student, where the guidance and framework is vague.

On a sidenote, I have heard from several of my friends that research is a highly intrinsically motivated field, you really need to be in it for yourself. In that sense, it’s a lot like running. You can’t bother comparing yourself to other runners, there are always stronger, faster, and more disciplined runners. You can only look at yourself, and measure yourself against your own internal GPS.

Anyways, back to the being lost point. I’m hoping that this aimlessness will force me to grow my own sense of meaning to life, a much more sustainable driving force than the praise of others. With graduation, the framework of school can disappear. With changing interests, the colleagues that motivated you can disappear. Eventually, maybe we all have to find something we love enough that we can intrinsically motivate ourselves to do it. It’s hard to say how that discovery process works. Maybe we just fuck around until we find something we like. Who knows.

from ken

Are you thinking about something? Write about it and post it here! Email me! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

The American Dream

Recently, I read a Time article about the novelist Jonathan Franzen. It was about his new novel Freedom and the decline of the American novel. Franzen’s novel is about a typical American upper middle class family living in the suburbs, with unfulfilled desires and superficial happiness. It’s a criticism of modern America’s obsession with anything that takes away “freedom.”

We’ve become so obsessed with simply the idea of freedom that we’ve forgotten that freedom is simply a means to an end, assuming the end is to have a meaningful life.

Personally, I love freedom. It’s easily what I love most about graduating from college and leaving the college bubble. Especially living in a city, there’s options and choices everywhere you look. New hobbies to take up, graduate programs to apply to, friends to meet, food carts to sample. It’s great having such a commitment-free life. I can do whatever I want, whenever.

I know, though, that living in this sort of freedom-driven world can only be satisfying for so long. The unfortunate thing about a commitment-free life is that there’s no investment, and so the returns can be pretty shallow.

Take for instance, my marathon training. I’ve been taking my training really relaxed, running when I want, trying not to put too much pressure on it. Running in college used to be so stressful for me, so this change is great because I never get too stressed from it. That’s the best thing about freedom, you can always walk away whenever something gets too stressful.

The flip side? You always have an out from every “commitment”. You never work through struggles, and it’s kind of the whole “no pain, no gain,” idea.

In fact, Franzen explains in his interview:

“One of the ways of surrendering freedom is to actually have convictions.”

When you believe something, it’s scary, because you have to make decisions not just based on our animal-like immediate desires to make decisions, but you have to think about what is best for your vision.

I like for my life to be a sort of y = 3 sin x graph rather than a y = 1, assuming the y-axis represent happiness. (My friend Mooks and I once planned to write a book about math functions and relationships). Having the freedom to try new and different things, you can maintain a certain level of happiness, never getting too down on yourself. Whereas sticking by your beliefs can have big payoffs and also big pains.

Taking advantage of our freedom and eating that extra piece of bacon, buying that new pair of shoes, or whatever other general satisfaction of a superficial desire you can think of, never seems to be as satisfying as it seems. But to be able to say, at the end of the day, that when you were challenged, you held firm to your convictions, I think that brings about a real feel of satisfaction.

from ken

Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

photo by *L*u*z*A*

Life is about other people, but it is FOR you

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

that's so right

As I committed to changing myself, I noticed a crucial hurdle. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to change! Should I change everything? Just the little things? One big thing?

I think it helps to look at the big negatives and especially the small positives.

Inevitably, there are parts of life that continuously bring about unsatisfied or unhappy feelings. The key here is that it happens all the time. There are always going to be times when anybody hates any job, or any girlfriend, or any hobby, but you shouldn’t hate it ALL the time.

Time is probably the ultimate limiting factor in changing your life. Making serious change is a big commitment and could take a lot of your time. Getting rid of baggage that you hate is always a good start to free up some space.

That said, a lack of bad isn’t necessarily going to make your life good, so I think you need to look at the corollary and notice that quick flash of interest that comes up every now and then. Especially those that seem to keep coming up. It could just be a coincidence, but maybe it’s not. Maybe you’re hyper sensitive to it because you have an undiscovered passion for it!

Think of the last time you saw someone doing something cool, and thought, “Wow, that’s so right.” I think there are things everybody innately believes is SO right, and maybe those things are your passions!

This definitely occurred to me with the idea of music. I played piano when I was little, but other than that I was pretty much musically illiterate. Then, I started to notice a capella singers, street musicians, and friends who just looked so passionate when making and performing music. I kept thinking, “That’s so right.” Then I realized, maybe I need to take a cue from these guys and play music too!

That’s why I love the concept of sidenotes. In my mind, a sidenote is that random intriguing flash that pops up every once in a while and makes you think, hey that looks kind of cool. But then you immediately dismiss it by making up excuses like, oh but that’s not for someone like me, maybe if I had the money, maybe if I wasn’t so busy with all this other stuff I have to do, and the list goes on. So often, I make those exact excuses, but when I really think about it, I do have some money stored up, I could make time for it if I really wanted to, and anybody can pick up a new hobby if they want. If I really think “that’s so right,” maybe there's something to it..

from ken

Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com


photo by controltheweb

Who is humanity?

I’m really into TED talks, which are 15-20 min presentations by people with great ideas ranging from education innovation to data presentation. I recently watched a good one by Simon Sinek. His talk was about what qualities make great leaders unique, and he focused on the three levels of doing. The first level is what we do, which most everyone knows. The second level is how we do it, which less people know. The third level is why we do it, which very few people know. Most people can only describe what they do, but the great leaders attract others by knowing why they live, and let their actions follow suit.

He used Apple as an example:

Why - Apple believes in challenging the status quo and making innovative products to make your life better.

How - they do this by creating products with a better and sleeker design.

What - they make computers, mp3 players, and phones, want to buy one?

I’m currently typing this on an Apple computer so I figure this guy must have something right, and I decided I wanted to create an abstract but simple dream for why I live.

My dream, both for myself and the world, is for our understanding of humanity to expand. I am hoping to learn that humanity is not just about myself, my circle of family and friends, my social class, or my country, but it is about every single human being.

How am I going to do this? By establishing a sense of solidarity with people who are different from me. What am I going to do? Well, I’m not exactly sure, but I’m hoping to hit on some good sidenotes.

Speaking of sidenotes, earlier today I was reading Street Roots, a newspaper sold by the homeless as a way to provide them with a job, and I was thinking about how fun it would be to write for them. At the end of the paper was a rallying cry to recruit more columnists. So I applied! We’ll see if that sidenote pans out..

from ken

Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

Social Justice or Happiness?

So last night I read an interesting passage from Gretchen Rubin’s book The Happiness Project. Her blog, also entitled the Happiness Project, was one of the inspirations to starting my own blog, so I was excited to read her book. It’s about her journey to find happiness in everyday things without making radical changes to her life. Basically, it’s an attempt to better appreciate the incredible life she already has. So anyways, the passage was a conversation between Rubin and an acquaintance that follows like this:

Friend: Everybody’s so obsessed with finding happiness and it really isn’t the point.

Rubin: Well we’ve reached a decent level of prosperity in our society. Isn’t it admirable that people set their sights on higher goals like happiness?

Friend: People should be more concerned with social justice, and peace, and the environment.

As Rubin tried to explain her project to others, she frequently encountered such criticism. This passage was so striking to me, because a year or two ago, I would have made that exact same criticism. After becoming aware of the grave injustices of the world I became obsessed with trying to right those wrongs, the only way I knew, by working hard and burying myself. I didn’t have time for my own happiness. In retrospect, this was, of course, not the best course of action.

I think about this, because I am essentially spending my life now to do whatever I want, enjoy myself, and learn about myself. At its essence, it is a very egocentric life. How would I answer to that friend who told me I should be more concerned with the world than “finding myself?”

That’s a hard question but if I had to answer now it would be something like this:

Helping people because I feel like I have to, which is how I used to feel, is completely different from helping people because it brings me happiness, which is how I am hoping to feel.

This Martin Luther King quote also represents my thoughts well:

“I submit to you that if a man hasn’t discovered something he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.”

There is really no cause in my life right now, that I feel so much solidarity for that I would die for it. I only have a shallow understanding of how I want to help people, who I want to help, etc. I’ve read enough of Pauline Chen’s columns (a surgeon that writes for the NYTimes) to know that med school/residency burnout is a far too common problem in medicine, and in other service fields. I think people burn out, largely because they jumped into a cause they weren’t prepared to die for, and when they started to die a little bit, they had to jump ship to a different cause. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with changing ships, I’ve done and will continue to do that. And that’s really what I’m doing now, hoping that if I just keep following random passions I’ll come across a good ship to jump on.

from ken

Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

Activism and patting myself on the back

One of the first things I wanted to work on out here in Portland is how I thought of myself as an activist. I had a great conversation about social justice, in which we talked about the importance of agency, and actually helping the people we want to help, rather than helping ourselves.

I was reminded of this conversation in a book I just finished reading called Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. At one point he asks, “Do we want to be social activists, or be seen as social activists?” Damn. Of course, it’s a little bit of both. Do I want to help people? Sure. But do I avoid the attention when people talk about what a good person I am? Of course not. And did you know that social work is dominated by women? Don’t think I didn’t notice that.

Anyways, I wanted to change this about myself while in Portland. I wanted to start by actually learning about the poor and the people I supposedly wanted to help. I wanted to learn to relate to them and understand their problems at a deeper level than, you are poor and I am not, I will help you. The playwrite Bertolt Brecht wrote, “The compassion of the oppressed for the oppressed is indispensible. It is the world’s one hope.” Brecht was definitely onto something. There are tons of rich people who survive cancer and decide, I want to raise money for cancer! Everyone always has a soft spot for people who struggle with the same thing they do.

As a way to work on my lack of solidarity with the poor. I decided to join a church that is way different than one I expected to be joining. The church is called Agape Church of Christ, and about 20% of the attendees are homeless. There are prostitutes, recovering alcoholics, hoping to be recovering drug addicts, etc. On July 4th, I went to a church BBQ hosted by one of my homeless brothers at the church. I later found out that he had paid for the BBQ with his food stamps. I was floored. Here I was hoarding my OHSU paycheck that I get for eating snacks, messing up experiments, and thinking about what to write here, and here was this guy giving literally everything he had for his friends. If I could ever learn to care with a portion of the heart of his, I would probably be on to something about being “an activist”.

from ken

Are you working on changing in your life? Tell me about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

Big Papi

Well, since yesterday I wrote about one of my life rules, “Trial by Fire.” I guess I’ll continue on and try to work through some of my other life rules.

One of my other rules is, “Go big or go home.” Hearing this reminds me of Red Sox icon David Ortiz, back when he was an absolute monster. I think for a couple years he was probably the most loved professional athlete. EVERYBODY in Boston was obsessed with Big Papi. But anyways, I think this rule really is about being bold. In the bottom of the ninth, when the game is on the line, inevitably Ortiz would come up to bat. Often, he would be the hero with a walk-off home run. And if he didn’t, he would at least go down swinging, which was admirable, because don’t you hate it when a game ends with a called strikeout?

I always wish I could be bold like that. I once heard a quote, "There is no love, only acts of love." So I figured, there are bold people, only bold acts. So maybe if I did bold things I would eventually become bold, or I would be someone who committed bold acts, or something.

This is why I came to Portland. After spending four years at Kenyon, I became way too comfortable in my life and routine. I had my running, classes, and research. Which were great. But it was stressful for me to try to do different things because I couldn’t let any of those three things go. Whenever I tried to pick up something new I felt like I had to add it to my pile and I got overwhelmed. I felt like if I wanted to try new things, I had to completely branch off and take a big risk.

On a sidenote, my favorite part of my life is friends (the first sidenote!). Today, I finally got my own desk at work, and I pinned up about 30 pictures of my friends. My apartment is similarly decorated. I love it. It was, and continues to be scary for me to leave all my friends, from Boston, from Kenyon, to move out to Portland.

Still, I knew if I wanted to retool my routine I had to completely change my environment. So I’m still glad I came out here, and it’s definitely allowing me to branch out, try new things, and meet new people.

Also, did you know sidenote isn’t a word?

from ken

How are you retooling your life? I’d love to hear about it. ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

In the beginning...

Today is the first day of the rest of your life, what will you do with it?

I’m sure you’ve heard that before. I have. But do you know that feeling when you really start to understand an idea you’ve been hearing for years? Well I’m just now starting to internalize what that statement means. And I think it means: stay in the moment, and love what you’re doing now.

I used to be in love with the idea of the future. I am ambitious, motivated, and hard-working. That tends to lead to a lifestyle oriented towards goals and how to achieve them. That, in a nutshell, is how I spent my time at Kenyon College, a rural school in Ohio.

Goal: I want to run varsity for Kenyon’s cross country team.
Plan: Run 90 miles a week all summer, hate life.

Goal: I want to go to med school.
Plan: Start getting good grades, study hard for the MCATs, and pad resume with research internships.

Goal: I want to have a girlfriend.
Plan: Choose a girl I like, relentlessly pursue them, and convert religions.

etc.

During my senior year of college I wrote an honors thesis on the survival mechanisms of bacteria that cause food poisoning. I didn’t write the thesis because I loved research, I liked doing experiments but not really thinking about the science behind it, or because I loved biology, I’m interested in how the body works but I don’t love studying. Instead, I wrote a thesis because I was ambitious and wanted to do something recognized as hard.

One day, I had a funny conversation with a friend that was also working on a thesis. Her thesis was about the growth scaling of caterpillars. We were talking about how invested we had become in our projects. She was having trouble growing her caterpillars, so she was troubleshooting with her adviser and she said, “Maybe the kids aren’t eating enough!” She loved her project so much she unconsciously mistook her caterpillars for kids! I always just thought people doing research were doing it to pad their resumes, like I was. But this conversation really made me realize, “Wow! These are the people who should be doing research!” Which made me realize, “Wait, maybe I shouldn’t be doing research!” And of course, this made me rethink how I was spending my days.

I recently graduated from Kenyon College and moved out to Portland, Oregon. Even more recently, I decided I want to use this move as a catalyst to change how I live my life and really how I spend my hours and minutes.

John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens to you when you’re making other plans.”

My friend Mooks and I had an epic email chain one summer that was over 10,000 words. In this chain, we would ramble on about something, and then some other more interesting idea would come up. In this situation we would say, “Sidenote:” and then go off on another tangent. This writing style is a great metaphor for how I want to try to direct my life. By forgetting about my long-term goals, I can check out some of the more tempting sidenotes that come up everyday, and maybe do a better job of focusing on the moment. We’ll see!

from ken

What are you doing with the first day of the rest of your life? I'd love to hear about it!