In reference to that previous post about the opportunity to build confidence, this is nothing more than a metaphor for meeting challenges more frequently than being crushed by the same. Accordingly, there is no certificate of completion when you've passed the quiz; it's just that one day you realize that you're explaining the most recent quiz to people around you, and at about that same time, the questions get more difficult.
What made me think I could manage the medical needs of the men and women in a desert I've never seen on the other side of the earth? Was it the same sort of thinking that entered my mind when I opened a National Geographic and envisioned a reason to at least temporarily avoid the completion of my Master's thesis in Exercise Physiology?
The year was 1986, and the concept that any true challenge is an opportunity to excel was in full force. I was preparing to sleep on my sister's couch and found the National Geographic with a center map that showed a thin blue line tracing all the way through North America beyond the Arctic Circle by way of the Canadian Provinces and Alaska.
My head almost burst from the size of the idea hatching inside: I would pack my bicycle bags and ride those few thousand miles to Anchorage and then to on the Arctic Circle. I had already pedalled across the US this way - how hard could another leg of the continent be?
But what had made me think I could ride my bicycle across the US? It was a history of assembling new bicycles in a neighborhood shop for a buck per hour under the watchful eye of the owner, until I was capable of learning repairs as well. Subsequently, periods on the side of the road were never a crisis; they were often a time for a snack as well as much as a repair. Perspective and carbohydrates help with everything.
For much of the 1980's, circumstances had dictated that I never lived with running water, electricity, or central heat all at the same time, although there were always one or the other, and this was the accepted baseline of comfort. Classes at Carolina and then Virginia Tech offered not only higher learning but also hot showers and endless clean little white towels. Perfect.
When living at home is a lot like camping, and getting to class is a lot like a bike ride, then an actual bicycle expedition becomes an extraordinary bonus to your daily life. Of course I would ride my bike to the Arctic Circle. Of course some days in the springtime near Denali National Park would not reach 32 F. It was not terribly unlike Blacksburg, VA on any given day in any given March.
When the aforementioned e mail came to me in a tent in Haiti this August, I could not have been more comfortable if it had found me in a Dial-a-Bed with a memory foam pillow. The two jobs, the one I was doing and the one on my Blackberry, presented both symmetry and contrast, with years, miles, and patients separating the two with a stories to be told and those yet experienced.
What made me think I could manage the medical needs of the men and women in a desert I've never seen on the other side of the earth? Was it the same sort of thinking that entered my mind when I opened a National Geographic and envisioned a reason to at least temporarily avoid the completion of my Master's thesis in Exercise Physiology?
The year was 1986, and the concept that any true challenge is an opportunity to excel was in full force. I was preparing to sleep on my sister's couch and found the National Geographic with a center map that showed a thin blue line tracing all the way through North America beyond the Arctic Circle by way of the Canadian Provinces and Alaska.
My head almost burst from the size of the idea hatching inside: I would pack my bicycle bags and ride those few thousand miles to Anchorage and then to on the Arctic Circle. I had already pedalled across the US this way - how hard could another leg of the continent be?
But what had made me think I could ride my bicycle across the US? It was a history of assembling new bicycles in a neighborhood shop for a buck per hour under the watchful eye of the owner, until I was capable of learning repairs as well. Subsequently, periods on the side of the road were never a crisis; they were often a time for a snack as well as much as a repair. Perspective and carbohydrates help with everything.
For much of the 1980's, circumstances had dictated that I never lived with running water, electricity, or central heat all at the same time, although there were always one or the other, and this was the accepted baseline of comfort. Classes at Carolina and then Virginia Tech offered not only higher learning but also hot showers and endless clean little white towels. Perfect.
When living at home is a lot like camping, and getting to class is a lot like a bike ride, then an actual bicycle expedition becomes an extraordinary bonus to your daily life. Of course I would ride my bike to the Arctic Circle. Of course some days in the springtime near Denali National Park would not reach 32 F. It was not terribly unlike Blacksburg, VA on any given day in any given March.
When the aforementioned e mail came to me in a tent in Haiti this August, I could not have been more comfortable if it had found me in a Dial-a-Bed with a memory foam pillow. The two jobs, the one I was doing and the one on my Blackberry, presented both symmetry and contrast, with years, miles, and patients separating the two with a stories to be told and those yet experienced.
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