Hanging out your shingle as a prospector
Anyone ever hand you a lump of coal? Unexpectedly? Probably not, but indulge me. Staring at that dark lump, turning it over and over in your hand, watching it smudge your palm. Puzzling, what to do I do with this thing? Yuck!
OK, OK, you may have never experienced this particular iteration of “I don’t want this,” but we’ve all encountered parallel situations that generate a “Get me out of here!” response. (Oh, come on, just admit it.)
Not wishing to brag or anything, but I’m a stellar exemplar of the speed-of-light, judgment-generator, type. One and done! That’s it. Where’s your humanity? Right, sure….Subject to one of my rapidly generated judgments and you’re out of my life. Whoosh!
But then, there was Pete Hamill. Haven’t heard of Pete? Admittedly, he died in 2020, but for many years prior to kicking the bucket, he was a quintessential New York essayist and raconteur. His words were pungent and memorable. And, ironically, his obituary boosted a wake up call for my humanity.
“Hamill saw that people, on the surface, could be not very admirable or attractive, but that doesn’t define them. There’s something in the interior of a person, something yearning to be better. Pete Hamill yearned to know what was yearning to be better in other people.“
Wherever you are, Pete, thank you! Read on, finding out how this lesson was calling my name.
A few years back, I needed several months of weekly subcutaneous shots in my belly. Fun, eh? The injection generally took about five seconds - ouch - and finis. A couple of months into this weekly routine of baring my tummy, I’d received the injection only from female nurses. Then I had a male nurse, rather disheveled, probably in his 50s. His stock-in-trade appeared to be joking around with patients to relax them.
As I bared my belly for the injection (modesty seems to diminish greatly with age), he said “don’t bare too much skin because I don’t have any money on me.” Whoa! I mean, seriously, whoa! His jokey comment was a throwback to the days of women as prostitutes. I could not let that pass (and live with myself) even though I realized it was part of his “let’s relax the patient shtick.“ Managed to say something along the line of how much our culture has changed over the years. He got my point.
We'd both just experienced this very strange moment and I was, now, steeped in judgment-heaven with this guy, as he readied me for the shot. Tense and angry. Truly ripe for a relaxing injection, you know?
Lo and behold, he walked me through a breathing exercise while giving the injection. An incredibly relaxing breathing exercise, leaving my eyes wanting to close. A practice that lessened the usual discomfort of the syringe’s entrance.
Just completely confounded my ample judgments of him. Completely. Called to mind the Pete Hamill description of digging-deep to find someone’s humanity. I’d already written this RN off. Big time. Suddenly, I had a brand new tool for managing future injection discomfort.
My continuing lesson from Pete Hamill‘s life? Don’t let someone’s surface behavior, or appearance, distract me from prospecting more deeply for their light. Thanks, Pete.