Wake up

I could have never prepared myself for what I was about to see. The semi-sentimental infomercials that you catch late at night, pleading for you to sponsor a poor village child could never compare. On the first day of our medical mission, as we walked through the urban slums of Cambodia, I became incredibly disheartened. Made from stray boards and scavenger sheet metal, the houses could hardly be considered reasonable living conditions by any standards. I saw naked children poke their heads out to stare at the strange visitors with their cameras. But I wasn't taking pictures to show friends back home, I just didn't want to forget the utter feeling of guilt. The gut-wrenching conviction was worsened by the Ivy League T-shirt I was wearing. None of that mattered here; these kids knew nothing of privilege or prestige nonetheless they seemed genuinely happy to see me. They played in garbage-filled ponds, used their sandals as toys, and made their own jewelry from tiny, rolled-up magazine pages they found in the trash. I wondered how they could be so content but the attending I was working with quietly mentioned that "they don't know anything better... that this is their world." And then I understood. I wasn't doing them any favors by giving them canisters of bubble-blowing solution and spearmint gum. In fact, they seemed to lose interest in the balloon animals I constructed for them during mobile clinic and community outreach, quickly passing them up for a short ride atop my shoulders. They wanted me. They hungered for genuine human connection and shared some of it with me. That day, they helped me realize my own poverty. I'd always believed that once I earned my MD, that only then would I be able to make the impact I wanted to on society. But I was slowly realizing that the miracle of healing occurs all over the world by everyday people who have learned the ability to exhibit true compassion.

Sorry man, I slept through a lot of it.. but I don't think it made a difference. Do you think we'll ever change? Do you think we'll ever grow up and stop talking about the things we contemplate about now a days. I don't feel like we can ever fully figure out what we're searching for so that means that one day we'll have to live with uncertainty... and I think for people like you and me this is one of the scariest things to do. But complacency will allow us to recover and we'll get around to getting around it. Don't you want to change the way you believe? Don't you wish you didn't have faith in the things you trust now? I wish I trusted more often and closed my eyes a little less. I feel like we always come back to the same idea and it invades our lives with our relationships with girls and our expectations and our alcohol and our friends and our futures.. What is it about us that won't allow us to get over the details. We can't seem to be free of our own cognition. At first I thought we could revel in our philosophies.. I think at one point we became proud.. and it felt good to be rationally savvy. But then we just forgot to check the price and now we can't take off the darkness. We'll set dates for flights home and dentist appointments, advertise social engagements and gatherings, delight in mysteries and our own shades of abstract just to have something to do tomorrow when in reality we could have died yesterday and been just as happy. It's not so much that we've changed.. maybe the stakes are just higher now and more n more we're finding out that in some areas, we can't just forge our parents signatures anymore. It's hard to say exactly where we'll be ten years from now, but we'll find a way to manage. .. we always do. Thanks for looking out.. I'm lookin out for you too bro. See you in a couple of days, J.