I'm Back.

They broke my rose colored glasses.

For weeks I wandered, lost, confused, trying to understand a world that seemed to have lost its delicate pink glow. I couldn't understand these people and their funny ways. Attendings who gossiped about residents. Residents who gossiped about each other. Gifted people who seem to see no further than their nose, who calculate the value of others only by how these 'pawns' could advance their goals. And most frightening, attendings and residents who hid a terrible face behind their fake outer facade.

Tough as this time has been, it has taught me invaluable lessons about life and our world. About how there truly are all kinds of people in every profession. That education, intelligence, and training in no way guarantees the production of a kind soul. That people often lose sight of what is important in the self-created struggle for what is not. That though they hurt us, we should have compassion for them, for in being near-sightedly hurtful to others, they ultimately hurt themselves. That they are not "bad" or beyond hope - they too have the potential to become great human beings. They just have "extra baggage" that hides that innate goodness.

I still don't understand them, and I hope to never become like them. The range of human potential never fails to astound, and coming face to face with these non-understandables reminds us of the beauty of diversity, and serves to remind us to constantly work towards the more admirable end of human potential. And even though good people sometimes seem fewer and far between, we're reminded that these people, too, are all around us, and will, if we let them, continue to inspire us.

They broke my rose colored glasses. What they don't know is that I got a new pair - besides, it was time for an update in frames anyways. I also got a backup pair of rose-colored contact lenses, just in case someone sneaky tries to break the new glasses...

It's nice to see the world in a better light again.

photo credit