Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. As I age, I focus less on the negative aspects of my life, and more on the many things for which I am thankful.
I am healthy. Many people in the world cannot say the same. What must it be like to have a child who is completely normal, is bitten by a malarious mosquito, gets cerebral malaria, and is dead in hours? Horrible. The Malawian children who have this condition have done nothing to deserve their fates. In a world where people refuse to care for themselves, hastening their own deaths (from eating the wrong things to refusing effective vaccinations) the injustice of African children dying of malaria is even more striking. I am thankful I have the opportunity to care for these children and conduct research to discover new therapies that may improve their outcomes.
I am thankful for my background and for my family. I was lucky. I was born into a supportive family. I’m White and have not had to struggle with being a racial minority. My spouse is kind, thoughtful, intelligent, handsome, and flexible. I travel a lot for work. Without his support I would not have the success in my professional life that I currently enjoy.
The key to my happiness is to consider, but not to dwell, upon the negative aspects of my days. To stay happy, giving thanks cannot be restricted to Thanksgiving.
I am thankful that I work both in Malawi and Washington DC. In Africa, both my co-workers and the patients that I care for are a joy. Blantyre is physically beautiful and relatively safe. In the USA I am thankful for both Bill Gaillard, the division head of Neurology, and Lisa Guay-Woodford, the head of my research institute. Both have been patient with me. When I arrived to Children’s National, Dr. Gaillard arranged for me to have a great deal of “protected time,” hours in the work week when I had no assigned duties. The expectation was that I would develop new programs, publish, apply for grants, and mentor others. His financial gamble paid off. With my non-structured time I was able to mentor other faculty members, residents, and medical students. I was awarded grants and published papers. I have contributed to putting Children’s National “on the map” in neurological global health. Win-win.
Does my life have problems? Absolutely. Read some past blog postings and you will understand that all is not rosy. But I am happy, both personally and professionally. The key to my happiness is to consider, but not to dwell, upon the negative aspects of my days. To stay happy, giving thanks cannot be restricted to Thanksgiving.
Finally, thanks to those of you reading this. When blog posts are published on Wednesdays, it is a joy to receive a message letting me know the sender has appreciated or been interested in what I have written. Even better is when I speak on the phone and people remark about something I wrote weeks earlier. I am thankful for you.
