Going that Half an Inch Extra
Do you know what is hard? The
hardest thing is just standing there, watching someone else do a sloppy job on
what you think you can do better. Like for instance the other day i was in the
OT and having wrapped up my surgery I happened to glance over at a table at the
other end of the room where a colleague from the ent department was operating.
The case in question was a patient with a naso-labial cyst- an infectious bag
of pus in the no-man’s land between the nose and the mouth. If i had been the
one to do the surgery I would have opted to do it under local anesthesia as i
considered it a minor surgery but my colleague had decided to do it under
general anesthesia which in my opinion was a bit of overkill.
Different Cysts |
Anyhow, as I stood there and
watched her explain the procedure to a couple of interns assisting the surgery,
i heard her say that she was planning to start with a sub-labial incision from
just below the lip. I couldn’t help but protest on hearing that and so i moved
closer to the surgeon and murmured slowly in her ear "why not go a bit
lower down and do a sub-gingival incision, that way we can prevent a visible
scar" (def: an incision is the place where we cut into the tissue and
finally suture - leaving a scar where the two ends join). She laughed aloud and
turning to face me made a comment for the benefit of the watching students
"who is going to bend down and look into the mouth to see if there is a
scar or not?"
Naso-Labial cyst- First Look |
A fair point and I accepted it,
just that my training in plastic surgeries had conditioned me to try and hide
all scars of any surgeries I did, whether visible or not. And then she made
another comment, to the great amusement of the students "when something is
right there why not take the easiest route? Why waste the extra time and
energy?” Having been put in my place, I ignored the snub and all the sniggers
behind me, as I pulled down my sterile mask and head cap and walked out of
there to change out of my theatre dress into my normal formals and go back to
my department.
During surgery- the cyst looks like this |
Later
on while i was sitting in the canteen sipping tea i reflected on that one
comment about extra and waste. A few times in my life I have met people like
that who would do just what is required but would not go a bit beyond what is
strictly necessary and give an extra inch of effort. And as far as I have seen
personally such people were never great successes in their lives or professions
because they were easily satisfied with mediocrity and rarely made the effort
to go beyond.
In one of my very first jobs as
part of my rural postings i had a senior colleague who would three hours into
the work day, click off his pen and stand up saying that he had worked enough
for the salary he got and would leave me all alone to tackle the rest of the
patients still waiting in a long line. And naturally as the
conscientious/sincere (foolish?) type i was left alone to see the rest of the
patients as dear colleague took a well deserved canteen break which lasted into
the rest of the afternoon. On reflection, i always think that i had the best of
the bargain for here I am so many years later still in the same profession
while he no longer is practicing medicine, last i heard.
People
like him intentionally set bars for their own successes by restricting
themselves mentally. They have a strong conviction that extra work is just not
worth the hassle and are easily satisfied with the work they do and the results
they get. They tell themselves this is my best, this is all I can do without
making any effort to see whether it’s really all they are capable of. You would
have seen such people too- the ones who
effortlessly make it into the top ten, the ones who with a little more hard
work can easily make it into the top three but are satisfied with just what
they achieve with the minimum effort necessary.
While
i am all for conservation of energy and letting person live life on their own
terms, what i bar is people who are unwilling to make the extra effort but
still expect success to come to them on a platter. And if it does not, these
are the ones who whine loudest about the unfairness of life all the while
taking it easy and just doing the minimum necessary to get by. While people
with awareness of what it takes to achieve success never stint themselves when
it comes to hard work. I remember a friend from college, a party dude, who on
returning from a night out at the discotheque, say maybe around 1AM would still
set the alarm to wake up at 5Am and study the day’s portions. That’s the kind
of extra effort I am talking about.
But
what I really deplore is people putting mental shackles on their own successes.
They convince themselves that they can’t and go onto fulfill their own
predictions. And not surprisingly end up as also-rans while people who go the
extra mile never regret the choices they make or the sacrifices it takes. All
those early mornings, all those late nights- all that hard work differentiates
the person who is willing to go the extra inch for success from the person who
is satisfied with what he can get without pain or sacrifice. And in the end it’s
that extra inch which matters.
And
so I believe and always will that it’s better to go down an inch below the
visible margin despite the extra ten minutes it will take me to finish, if I
can get a better than expected result. In the end what really matters is
personal pride in a job well done and not merely others appreciation. What do
you think?
Disclaimer
: Images courtesy Google Images – copyright free.
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