On Gratitude

I was brought up in a home where charity and gratitude matter. I was taught to share my blessings and at the same time, taught to look back on the people who have been instrumental to my growth as a person. Whether that person has been good or bad to me, in a way, his/her presence in my life has contributed much to my maturity. I will forever be grateful to them. Yep! No matter what pain i have experienced with them in the past.

Fact is, I dont live on resentments and i will definitely have no time for vengeance. If other people have done me more harm than good, then there's noone to be blamed but myself alone for allowing it to happen. In short, i just have to live with the idea that there are naturally bad people and these bad people were created for a purpose too. It all depends on how i'll let them affect my life. Everything lies on how i would let them mold my character.

Recently, i received a call from a junior consultant who happens to be a former senior resident of our department. I felt all her pain and resentments to our department and to my former seniors too who happen to be her juniors. When i was an intern, i already witnessed this conflict between her and her fellow residents. Ive seen both sides of the coin. Ive kept mum though and kept my opinion to myself knowing that i would be in no position to intervene. After more than three years, i was called to be involved. Receiving that call, hearing her side of story and emphatizing with what she felt, i feel that there's a need for me to eventually say something.

She resented the fact that her juniors where ungrateful for what she had done for them. They were talking behind her back, were talking bad about her, and did not talk things out with her. I am not taking sides here. Both parties are close to me for in a way, they both contributed to where i am in right now. What i just cant take is the fact that why on earth can other people be so ungrateful? This junior consultant might have lapses or deficiencies but these are not enough reasons for her junior to talk bad about her especially to our chairman. Fact is, not because you can already stand on your own feet or fly on your own wings, you'll eventually forget what someone has done for you when you were a fledgeling. She was way ahead of them and for sure, she has trained them too when they were just starting. This i guess would be enough for her juniors to pay her a little respect too even if they forgot how to be grateful.

Noone's perfect shall we say. I for one have a lot of resentments too to my seniors. These arent enough though for me to forget all the help that they have extended to me when i was just starting. As previously mentioned, i dont carry these resentments with me. I have enough responsibilities to carry on my shoulder. To degrade someone though or to assassinate her character for whatever benefit is quite unreasonable. If this junior consultant had been selfish, much that i felt that my seniors have no right to be ungrateful to her for they themselves didnt differ much from her honestly speaking. Hearing the extent of the damage that they have done to her life is not even enough reason for me to lose my respect on them.

There's a truth really to the old adage that one mistake is enough for other people to forget all the goodness that you've done. Her good work's eventually forgotten. Instead, she was more remembered for her absences and excuses. All eyes were on her, awaiting for her to commit another mistake. With this kind of working environment, not even i will choose to stay and suffer. She was also a victim of circumstances. She lived in the time where our chairman was yet untamed. Untamed for he'll lash you out with those words you couldnt take. If your motto is not "Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me," you'll eventually die bleeding in the battle of words. This was what happened to her. She wasnt able to express her side. She wasnt able to talk things out. She was just too damn afraid to speak out or maybe too wounded to reason out.

I'm not talking that our chairman heard just one side of the story. Independent and open-minded that he is, i know that he didnt not just take stories from the other side and believed them. How can he weigh things out however for the problem with our junior consultant was that she didn't say a word. She didnt explain her side. What made things worse was that she left the department without a word leaving a mark of an ingrate.

Recently i discovered that despite of what happened, she was still grateful to the department, to our chairman and to her training. She will not be the most trusted consultant in the hospital she's currently working in if she's not trained well, this she claims. She also believed that her being was molded by her training in our institution. Like me or anyone of us for this matter, she too has an ambition to subspecialize. The problem however is that she couldnt move on and eventually take a step higher. This thing, for the past three years, still holds her down.

It's so sad why some people really just couldnt talk things out. It would take years to settle old conflicts. It would take years to unload one's resentments. The courage to talk and to express one's self is actually not proportional with age i realized. Not all people have the guts to really say what they feel. The reason why most of us feel unloved, unappreciated and unaccepted is because it's usually hard for us to say "i love you," "thank you," or "im sorry." I just couldnt imagine living such kind of life for i might be given just a few number of years to live. I dont want to waste it by not sharing a part of myself to others.

This Monday, i pray that everything's going to be ok for her. Our chairman initiated the move to talk to her again. This happened just out of the blue. Or maybe, a caring father that he is, he has been thinking about her all along. I believe in his independent mindedness. I also believe in his fairness. I just pray that on our junior consultant's part, she'll be open-minded and remorseful too. I also hope that she could express what she really wanted to say and not wait for another three more years before this century old conflict be settled.

With my fingers crossed, i hope to witness a revival of the story of The Prodigal Son, our Department's version!