18 minutes ago5 min read

My view on 5 Advice from Atul Gawande M.D., in his book 'Better'

Better by Atul Gawande M.D., is an intriguing read and he used events from his own life and others he gathered through interviews and research, facts, and insights from his career to drive the point home. The book goes over several intriguing details that as an outsider miss about the life of being a medical professional. His fine details on the intricacies associated with the participation of medical professionals in Executions in America have surely left me contemplating between the ethical, moral, social, and professional acceptance of the unwritten do's and don'ts. The rules are often obscured under the manifolds of right and wrong actions, intentions, and attitudes. His framework of the book tries to outline how it's usually the continuous and relentless improvement that is the reason for massive success in a field as complex and hard-lined as his. He pointed out along the lines of how investments in the betterment of existing facilities and services rather than in research would increase overall patient care.

Closing the book, he went over 5 advice for the students he gave a lecture to, which I think is worth sharing. These simple practices would bring a slight mindset shift and that could be the beginning of something subtle and beautiful blooming within each of us! Here's my take and input on his advice.

Here we go:

Ask unscripted questions for human connection. As we carry on with our day, with most of us working for most of our waking time at the workplace, this applies to every one of us. We're these days glued to our digital world of gossip, futile updates, and mostly information noise, we forget the existence of real humans near, beside, and opposite to us. Maybe because they are in the same invisible digital bubble as us, they don't mind or care to do the same. Knowing something beyond the bluescreen is essential to keep our liveliness, well alive. Talk to people, not fully business, but about their day, their likes, if they'd eaten, their fav show, the game they like, their family, whatever you find appropriate. We're routinized to keep the conversations transactional, to obtain just exactly what is needed to keep your wheel rolling and begin treating them just like a gadget. Being with that person, you know or don't know, in the fullest possible consciousness would transform us in both small and big ways.
Never complain If you can't say anything positive, maybe consider not saying anything. This statement is often misunderstood as helplessness, uncaring for change, etc. What I refer to as the stimulation response gap is nothing but what it sounds like. The time lapse between your reaction/response to what you received as a question, an event, or a stimulation. I've spoken about it in my previous posts, but it needs reiteration here because I placed a filter to figure out what I can and can't say. I use this filter during the time- lapse to remove the complaints. Here's the filter. Is sharing this going to benefit anyone? Is he or she the right person to share this particular thing? Is it the right time to share this? Just the at the right place, saying the right thing, at the right time. Nowhere the complaints, gossip, or anger would fit in that filter.
Count something
I was confused as you probably are right now. But it looks like we all do from time to time. I always, always count the stairs I climb up or down, the count runs subconsciously, without my attempting to do so, and funny enough, I can find a pattern with the height, the width, and the breath of the stairs at various places. Dr. Gawande's rational was to have a running tab of the number of something, and once you have enough data, find the patterns, anamolies, and maybe you find the statistics that might alter the way you think or make your eyes open to something you wouldn't have seen until then. It could be at you workplace, payin attention to the number of times you hear a particular issue, or counting the number of desserts you have per week, or whatever you choose to count. Pay attention to the numbers. The pattern usually suggests something intriguing.
Write something Anything! Journal, list of things to buy, to do list, gratitude, morning pages, blogpost, vlog content, educational notes, book summary, cook notes, book, whatever your interest is, write. It can be a very small ritual which can get in touch with the unspoken sides of you. It may even be a revelation that you had that within you. You don't have to be a good or even an average writer. Writing, just like reading a newspaper, brushing the teeth, or sleep, should be a routine, it is probably the only time you are alone with your internal dialogue with a distance. What does that even mean? Well, we're constantly accompanied by our thoughts, we're so close to it that we even shift our identities to our mental activity. Due to that, we say what we think, without taking a beat to recognize the rationale and at least the tiniest sense of truth behind it. Writing as I see it is the only ritual that can put your mental rumination or diarrhea into your physical, readable, visual sense, so we see our nonsense at a reading distance.
Fight ignorance Fighting ignorance need the internal push, the desire to make sure we're in the knowing. As we know more, we slowly get to know how much more we don't know. As my Guru says, you should aspire to die a Failure, since if your desires are so lofty that one lifetime may not be enough, you'd do as much as possible every minute of your life, making sure not even a moment is wasted in doing the inessential. Thinking along that line, we wouldn't have sufficient time to remove the amount of ignorance we have within ourselves. There's an entire universal load of things we don't know and we can just start at the level of knowing something that interests us, either your career related, or an unrelated hobby, or just curiosity about something. It might sound as a difficult task, thinking the number of things you already have in your plate, but YOU know YOU HAVE TIME TO MAKE THESE AND MUCH MORE HAPPEN, EASY!