Let’s Connect
From the
President
JAMES Patrick Murphy, MD, MMM
GLMS President
[email protected]
This is a story about
success
This is a story about success.
A fledgling anesthetist,
I was a bit nervous much of the time.
Now, dialing my cell phone,
I was a bit nervous again.
It had been fifteen years since we’d spoken.
In that small-town O.R.,
You were either family or outsider.
So we were family.
She had a strong feminine physique and a
healthy glow,
That warmed those around her like early summer sunshine.
A surgical mask could not prevent her country
girl countenance
From freely filling the O.R. with a genuine
smile.
A registered nurse,
She was the quintessential surgical first assist,
Studying to be a massage therapist,
Adding to her repertoire.
And she would have been highly successful,
Had not the incident occurred.
Through no fault of her own,
A spinal cord injury,
Quadriplegia.
Now, after fifteen years,
By phone,
A homecoming.
Success requires perspective, insight, and a
homecoming of sorts. Perspective requires comparison. Emily Dickinson knew this.
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory!
As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!
Echoing Ms. Dickinson’s point, author and ALS
patient Philip Simmons wrote about the necessity
of imperfection:
We have all heard poems, songs, and prayers
that exhort us to see God in a blade of grass,
a drop of dew, a child’s eyes, or the petals of a
flower… that’s too easy. In all that is ordinary
and imperfect, this is the ground in which life
sows the seeds of our fulfillment. May we live
fully in each flawed and too human moment,
and thereby gain the victory.
Once gained, perspective leads to insight - the
second necessity for success. Anyone can pick
lottery numbers, get lucky, win and feel successful.
But meaningful success requires insight born of
action. For example, when asked why he seemed
so lucky, the legendary golfer Ben Hogan offered,
“The more I practice, the luckier I get.”
Insight is the lens through which you can discern success. In Rudyard Kipling’s poem If, insight
is the goal of this father’s advice.
If you can dream and not make dreams your
master
If you can think and not make thoughts your
aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same
Here “Triumph and Disaster” are imposters,
because they are extrinsic and subjective labels.
Acquire insight necessary to make your own
discernment, and you will define your success
intrinsically.
Perspective and insight allow for the third element of success - returning to your true self. In his
All The World’s A Stage passage, William Shakespeare noted,“one man in his time plays many
parts.” At any particular moment, your actions are
dependent upon numerous factors such as stress,
mood, fatigue, hormones, career, economics, ego,
etc. But everyone has a true self and success is
dependent upon going home to that true self.
T. S. Eliot knew this.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
In this sense, the place where you started is
your true self; the self that is your center; the self
that creates your thoughts and actions. Regardless
of your life’s circumstances, success is achieved
when your thoughts and actions are in harmony
with the true you.
Email me at [email protected].
Follow me on Twitter @
jamespmurphymd.
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Sign up for, visit and comment on
the GLMS blog.
Download the GLMS mobile app.
Or just give me a call. My number
is in the GLMS “mug book” and
the mobile app.
I had no expectations,
But was still surprised by her voice - a bit
raspy, but clearly her.
Through a headset that her 24 hour care giver
had placed,
We talked,in the same matter-of-fact manner
That one might discuss the weather.
She told me of her struggles with self-care,
Numerous surgeries, spinal pain pumps,
The joy of simply being able to feed herself,
When a computer was implanted in her
paralyzed arm.
And the disappointment when the company
went bankrupt,
Leaving her again completely at the mercy of
others for her care.
“Now I’m back to where I started.”
After the necessary measure of medically
related talk,
As our conversation began to wind down,
And she began talking about her children,
All three had traversed their adolescence,
Having dealt with the senseless and tr Y