On change in life

THIS PIECE WAS WRITTEN SOMETIME BACK

I AM POSTING IT ON THE OCCASION OF MY SUPERANNUATION

ON CHANGE IN LIFE

Preamble Dr Susan E Kersley is a retired doctor and a life coach. She has a website www.thedoctorscoach.co.uk .She wrote a series of articles in the British Medical Journal Career Focus on the whys and wherefore of change in life, from A to Z to be precise. They can be accessed at youcanchangeyourlife.co.uk.They were all eminently readable articles and they set me thinking__to change or not to change, that is the question. Apologies to the Bard, but, do I suffer the slings and arrows of an outrageous fortune, do a sea of troubles bother me ?Whether I should take up arms and effect a change, or continue to nobly suffer in the mind, if I don’t?

What follows are some of my musings. Why pen them down? Because they may just turn out to be your own, and we may be brothers in arms.

Change is an inevitable fact. The world constantly changes.’ All things must change to something new, to something strange’, observed Longfellow. Our surroundings change, the people who we associate with change within themselves and as totally different individuals. It seems inordinate that we will not change in response, but depending on your personality type you may not. If you are the judicious type, and hence more rigid and controlling, you may prefer not to, or even try to stem the tide of change. Such people are often seen as the spanners in the works. On the other hand there are those who have a flexible personality and, though may be perceived as unreliable and disorganized, are fun to be with as they are so open to change, quite akin to the bumbling Mr. Bean

I believe I am the judicious type. I am not lithe as a bending reed. This propensity, and not my weight, makes me a little cumbersome at times. Not only do people find it hard to interact with me, quite often I find them hard to tolerate. I find it hard to reconcile myself to their errant ways, or uncouth opinions. In terms of workplace scenario, this translates into a vehement aversion to toeing their line of approach to a subject or problem, of their methods of implementation. It also means a qualitative and quantum difference in opinion on policy issues. Consequently I would be unfit for any administrative job which forces me, in some measure, to be beholding to those that be, those who matter. My personality type even makes it difficult for me to join them if I can’t beat them.

Logically then, unless I am at the top of the ladder (and if I am there, I would have reached my own level of incompetence anyway, by Parkinson’s Law), I should carry on as usual as Susan Kersey would suggest. Unfortunately I shun inertia. Going by the ABC for change in life, I do find the (N) need for change and a (Q) quest for quality and (O) opportunity.

What then? I need to recognize that I need to do something different or differently. This is a veritable choice. I guess it would be relatively easier to do what I am doing, differently. My chief Dr P k Sethi used to say that it is not given to everybody to do something extraordinary. It is more important to do ordinary things in an extraordinary way. It took me all my lifetime to discover that even this is not so easy. How much more difficult would it be to do something different. Do I have that much time left to make an attempt? Well Susan says that now is the time to change, and Susan ought to know for Susan is a life coach

I don’t think Susan really means that you change horses midstream, that from an orthropod you turn into a gynae & obs chap or what have you , although its quite probable she could even profess that, and I can even hear her respond “why not?” There have been precedents, you know, Sir John Charnley for instance or Bob Salter for that matter. I would prefer to imagine, however, that she hints at something more subtle, and yet a little off course, like maybe taking retirement. Well, what then? What are the “O for options”? One option would be to retire, sit back and relax, and maybe reminisce, like George Perkins. (No offence meant, I am merely alluding to his book “Reminiscences of an Orthopaedic surgeon”) I think I read something of this sort in Tennyson's “Lotus eaters”.”Ah, why should life all labour be? Is there any peace in ever climbing up the climbing wave?”Why shouldn’t we “ever fold our wing, nor step our brows in slumbers holy balm nor harkens what the inner spirit sings”. It does sound really tempting, but I doubt if it would last, unless you take to lotus eating. Somewhere down the line, and your lifeline may be long enough, you begin to itch and yearn for something professional, especially professionals like me.

The second option would be to take up a post retirement job, where you have everything you desire or want to do, and none of the tedious and tiresome, the loathing and disparaging you had wanted to leave behind in the first place. Does such a job exist? It entails a “J for journey” on a “Q for quest” which is likely to end up in the “R for reality” that it does not exist. You could land up something like a part time assignment, or if you are exceptionally lucky, a job where your employer or hospital permits you selective working involving specialized work or preselected working hours and predetermined responsibilities as per your predicaments. In other words you are permitted to have your cake and eat it too, but that presumes a damn good fortune, or a bloody good repute which kind of makes you indispensable or the best commodity up for grabs. Just come to think of it, had that been so in your case, you wouldn’t be in this dilemma in the first place.

A third option would seem to be to have the best of both the previous two, have a part time assignment of your choice not totally without strings, and have a leisure time life doing, not lotus eating maybe, but, something equally close to your heart, your lifetime hobby. In my case that would be reading, and writing for whatever my ramblings are worth. Reading is always a passion. You might love fiction because you love storytelling, and you may love nonfiction because you love ground realities. Some love to read to exercise their grey matter, and others merely to occupy it. Reading is more universal than writing. Why write? It could be, and possibly was a means of making money and a livelihood for some doctors like Somerset Maugham (the author of ‘Of Human Bondage’ on the life of a clubfoot, Phillip Carey) or A.J.Cronin, whose “The Citadel” became a literary landmark portrayal of life in the coalfields of Wales through the eyes of Andrew Manson, the local doctor. Rarer instances are where doctors combine their profession with finesse for penmanship. I mean guys like James Herriot, the vet, and his tetra logy “All things bright and beautiful”,” All creatures great and small”, “All things wise and wonderful”,” The Lord God made them all”. Most of the people like me write because we just feel like putting pen to paper, put our thoughts in words, not to set the coffers rolling, not hoping or expecting people to read them, but because of, let’s say an obsessive compulsion. I think, therefore I write. This is why I am writing this piece! This is how I would like to change my life!

Dr Rakesh Bhargava

Retired Prof. & Head of Orthopaedics

SMS Medical College & Hospital

47 Moji Colony, Pradhan Marg,

Malviya Nagar,

Jaipur 302017

India