Three years ago, on a redeye flight from Oklahoma City to Orange County, I witnessed a flight attendant work with such grace, presence, and self-possession that I wanted to ask how he found enlightenment. It was obvious he loved his job and he wanted to be there. Something in the service of drinks connected him to something bigger than himself. He was in the right place, doing the right thing, at the right time. I wanted that too but didn’t ask how he got it. Whatever his answer would’ve been, I wouldn’t have been able to hear it.
Because I wasn’t ready to look the world in the eye.
Fifteen months ago, when I walked my resignation letter to the post office and heard it clink the mailbox’s bottom, it was the first time in eight years I was myself. On that sidewalk in Santa Barbara, I was just who I was: a guy that didn’t want to be a doctor anymore and didn’t know what was next. As I walked back to our apartment, I could finally look the world in the eye again and hold my ground.
This week, I was rummaging through art at a local Habitat Restore, looking for pieces to hang in our furniture booth, when I came across a copy of the Serenity Prayer. Trimmed in a mahogany frame, bordered in forest green, and printed onto tan paper, I picked up the 8×10 inch copy and read the prayer. We’ve all heard the prayer before, but on this print, I saw two additional passages. (Per Wikipedia, the first passage is credited to Reinhold Niebuhr, with the second and third attributed to the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous.)
For $3, it’s now hanging on the wall left of my desk, and when I stop to read it, my eyes catch on the same two lines of the second passage written by AA:
Living one day at a time. Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.
Maybe that’s what the flight attendant would’ve told me, “It’s going to be hard, but if you live in honesty, you get to be yourself, look the world in the eye, and own some peace.”
I needed that reminder this week: inner peace is supposed to be hard. Let us never forget that.
To livin’ a life we love,
Ryan Fightmaster, MD
(P.S. My new e-book 32 Lessons from 8 Years Lost in Medicine is up on Amazon and Amazon Kindle. Thank you to everyone who’s bought the book. Here’s a link if you’d like to get a copy.)
