Whoever ceases to be a student has never been a student…’George Lles’
My five-year-old daughter had a fight with her neighbour, over some trivial issue.
“Papa, I will never talk to Pinki. She fought with me over a piece of cake.” She cried and hugged me.
“OK, don’t talk to her”. I was hurt as my heart bled for my little kid.
Within an hour, I saw her playing again with Pinki in a fonder way.
“Hey, why did you talk to Pinki?” I asked.
She looked at me and said. ” Papa, Pinki said sorry to me”.
Only a child can be so forgiving!
I, a Thirty-Five-year-old accomplished professional, learned a lesson from my little daughter: ‘to forgive.’
I used to give all kinds of lessons to my growing children, well, she taught me a lesson about life.
Someone correctly said, “Be a student, always.”
Teaching is not always from books. It happens every day, around us, through people who may be much below our IQ and LOGIC.
God bestowed upon us five senses, for normal physiological happenings and protection but also for education.
We were not born Mr Perfect.
There is a vast scope to endlessly learn and educate. We have to agile our senses and gain knowledge from every person, thing or situation.
The day we cease to learn, we become toads in the well.
The brain has a massive conglomeration of grey cells that are sensitive to education and re-education. The more we use them, the more they grow and behave positively. Disuse brings early dementia and forgetfulness. At my leisure, I solve Crosswords and Sudoku to activate and nourish my grey cells.
Even after performing myriad surgeries, I still open the operative manual and study the procedure before venturing into the patient’s ‘No Man’s Land’.
Every time I learn something new, I do it again.
Am I incompetent and fickle-minded?
No!
I am confident and do not want to be overconfident.
A Doctor is a student for life; so should be every person, no matter what profession or business he is in.
If we stop learning, we are as dead as a piece of meat hanging on the doorstep of the local butcher.
Our heads are like antennas. Instead of catching the mundane news and gossip, if we tune it to a wiser channel, we can learn from the various platforms of social media.
I operated upon a poor patient. While asking for my fees the patient folded his hands and said, “Doctor sahib, grow spinach in your garden, not radish. Radish, once pulled, is gone for good, while spinach will keep growing over and over again. Keep getting the harvest going, slowly. Charge me less and I will keep coming to you.”
I got the message, loud and clear and reduced the fees by half.
No wonder, the illiterate villager taught me a lesson. I felt like a meagre student in front of an old patient’s experienced and rustic eyes.
A student is always a student!
