Eric Tian

One of my fondest memories is math class on Friday, November 11, 2011. The class started at 11:00am and for the next 11 minutes, our class of 25 did nothing but watch the clock. If a student pulled out a textbook, our teacher, an athletic 6’2″ middle-aged white male, would yell at them to put it away. And so we sat – waiting, holding our breath. The minute before 11:11 was the longest minute of my life.

When the monumental time finally arrived, the class erupted: a mix of cheers, wonder, and amazement. My teacher burst into tears in front of us.

We all recognised there was something beautiful in that minute, 11:11am at 11/11/11, a minute unique to human civilisation, one that would never be seen again.

From Murakami’s Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey:

“I believe that love is the indispensable fuel for us to go on living. Someday that love may end. Or it may never amount to anything. But even if love fades away, even if it’s unrequited, you can still hold on to the memory of having loved someone, of having fallen in love with someone. And that’s a valuable source of warmth. Without that heat source, a person’s heart—and a monkey’s heart, too—would turn into a bitterly cold, barren wasteland. A place where not a ray of sunlight falls, where the wildflowers of peace, the trees of hope, have no chance to grow. Here in my heart, I treasure the names of those seven beautiful women I loved.” The monkey laid a palm on his hairy chest. “I plan to use these memories as my own little fuel source to burn on cold nights, to keep me warm as I live out what’s left of my own personal life.”

A senior monk and a junior monk were walking together when they encountered a rushing river. As they were preparing to cross, they saw a young woman also attempting to get past. The young woman asked if they could help her cross to the other side. The two monks hesitated because they had taken vows not to touch a woman.

Then, without a word, the older monk picked up the woman, carried her across the river, placed her gently on the other side, and carried on with his journey.

The younger monk was stunned at what he had witnessed but said nothing for many miles. Finally, after several hours, he confronted the older monk.

“As monks, we are not allowed to touch a woman, how could you then carry her on your shoulders?”

The older monk looked at him and replied, “Brother, I set her down on the other side of the river, why are you still carrying her?”

11 years ago, Howard Stern interviewed Jerry Seinfield on his joke writing process.

“Seinfeld: I’m never not working on material. Every second of my existence, I’m thinking, could I do something with that?

Stern: That, to me, sounds torturous.

Seinfeld: It’s like going to the gym every day. It’s hard, you know, how you walk in every day and go, “Oh jeez, I gotta do this again.”

Stern: Yeah, it sounds like a tortured life.

Seinfeld: It is, but you know what? Your blessing in life is when you find the torture you’re comfortable with.”

I’d like to tell a story about a man. The thing is, I don’t know much about him, despite us meeting just last week. I cannot recall even his face or his name. Only what he did and said.

It was sunset and I was getting ready to do my last set when I saw him. He was Asian, in his mid-60s to 70s, with a woman of a similar age. He wore a simple striped T-shirt, brown shorts and sandals. The two walked towards the exercise park I was next to, the man leading slightly ahead.

Without a word, he jumped on a bar and began to do pull-ups. Clean ones, too. Picture perfect form. I didn’t mean to stare, but I was so shocked I couldn’t help myself. He did five, then 10, then 20 and then I lost count. He must have done at least 40 in a row before he began to slow down. When the show was over, he had barely broke a sweat. He began walking to his female companion, who was doing stretches a few metres away.

I don’t usually approach strangers in public, but I felt like I had just witnessed something extraordinary.

“Excuse me,” I called out. He turned around. “That was great.”

We stared at each other for a moment. Then, noticing his puzzlement, I realised he didn’t speak English. I awkwardly flashed a smile and gave him a thumbs up.

“In a haddar.” He said. Now it was my turn to be confused.

“In a what?”

“In a haddar.”

Without another word, he took off on a run, leaving me and his female companion behind. He went the opposite way he came from. I thought I would never see him again.

But as I walked home, our paths crossed once more. He was running on the footpath towards me and the evening streetlights provided a long shadow. He had seen me too and seemed excited about something. I thought he would slow down. But he just flew past, in his same T-shirt and sandals, and said the same phrase again.

“Innaehada.”

It was Korean. Next to the passing street cars, I pulled open my phone and looked it up.

Innaehada. Korean for endure; persevere; be patient. His secret to my wonder.

If you see clothes in the laundry basket, there is nothing wrong with you. You have clean clothes in the closet. You have clothes on your body. There are dirty clothes on the floor. There are clothes you should probably donate or throw away. There are lost garments somewhere unknown. And some end up in the laundry basket.

It exists in a cycle.

In my hyperproductive sphere, I have increasingly noticed things described in binary terms:

• Workout: done or missed.
• Anki reviews: cleared or not.
• To-do list: crushed or failed.

What if we viewed our lives in more of a cycle, something that ebbs and flows?

There are always things that are done, things soon to be done, things waiting to be done, and things that can be discarded. A natural cycle of action.

I was recently commenting to my friend how my “to-read” pile is never zero. My rate of finishing books is always slower than my rate of finding new books to read.

“Is that a problem?” they asked. “Sounds perfectly normal.”

They were right. It is an endless, perfect cycle: a river that flows continuously, rather than a bucket that is filled and emptied.

Sometimes I wonder what Odysseus felt,
Returning to Ithica
20 years later.
Seeing his wife haggled by suitors,
His own home disrespected,
His own name forgotten.

Or Perseus, as he hunted Medusa,
Knowing that one wayward glance
Would turn his skin to stone,
And be the end of his story.

Or Achilles, who fought at Troy
Knowing that he could flee
And never be caught,
Yet fighting,
Knowing he would be slain.

Or Heracles and his 12 labours,
Facing the hydra,
The three-headed Cerberus,
The stench of the Augean stables,
Even carrying heaven on his shoulders.

These battles, I want to ask,
Were they worth it?
Being remembered by history,
Exalted as mankind’s heroes,
That is.

And for the stories with quiet, unremarkable battles,
Ones fought more domestically, within oneself,
Like the billions of caterpillars transforming
In hidden corners of the forest,
We forget.

History is generous to brazen courage.

On the Anaesthetics team, you get the privilege of witnessing how different surgeons behave.

The variety is enormous. Some surgeons are friendly and approachable, cracking jokes and laughing with the team. They will thank everyone when the surgery is done and remember your name. Then there are others who rarely smile, look at you, let alone ask who you are. They might only address you when they need something.

What’s interesting is how teams respond to these different personalities. Teams with kind surgeons are more likely to proactively help out and with more enthusiasm. But teams with unkind surgeons are more likely to be more stressed, communicate less, and make mistakes. I have seen nurses drop things, anaesthetists fumble, and scrub techs questioning their movements. These surgeries often leave me feeling separated from the team and wishing the surgery was over sooner.

There are routinely discussions on how to improve surgical outcomes. Three-point ID checks, routine hand washing, checking allergies: these things are all important, but the question of personality is never raised. Maybe it’s time.

It’s funny how badly we predict things.

Last week, there were two agendas on my schedule: one medicine-related task I was dreading, and one work-related event I was looking forward to. My crippling worry of the former was equal to my hope for the latter. A perfect yin and yang.

Without going into details, the opposite ended up occurring. The medicine-related task I was dreading turned out well beyond my wildest dreams. And the event I was looking forward to turned into a living nightmare. My initial expectations of these events made the results even more surprising.

Both of these outcomes were beyond my control.

Now I think it easier to have fewer expectations. Like the man who, in response to life’s dynamic events, only utters, “We’ll see.”

I once met a guy who told me he didn’t believe in laziness.

“What do you mean, you don’t believe in it?” I asked. “Don’t you ever feel lazy?”

“Not really,” he replied. If he didn’t believe in something, he explained, it simply didn’t exist. So, he just didn’t believe in anything that slowed from his goals.

After this shift in mindset, he soon reached an unprecedented level of productivity. By listening to his stories it became obvious he possessed a fountain of energy that led him to achieve a great deal. I was convinced that what he was saying was true: he had eliminated laziness from his life. All from one change in belief.

Derek Sivers once wrote: “Beliefs make emotions. Emotions make actions. So choose whatever belief makes you take the action you want.” I think my friend would approve of this message.