The Warrior Emotion

By David Jarrard

3-minute read

It’s so tempting to despair.

It’s so easy to be cynical about the state of things, not the least of which is this broken, snorting healthcare machine that we all wrangle to fulfill a calling that once rang for us, and, maybe, still does, despite all.

Today, if only for a moment, let’s choose hope, instead.

Hope is hard work, though. It’s contrarian. It’s unreasonable. It’s vulnerable.

Hope in these times? It’s embarrassing, really. Has it ever been otherwise?

But what is the “delivery of healthcare by providers” – how distantly cool, that phrase – if not hope-filled?

What are we selling inside the sterile white walls of our exam rooms if not a measure of hope, even if that hope disguises itself as mere clarity or companionship for a difficult journey being traveled by a patient or a colleague?

“Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth,” says musician and writer Nick Cave.

“Hopefulness is not a neutral position either. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like… keeps the devil down in the hole. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in. In time, we come to find that it is so.”

Let’s not diminish powerful hope by confusing it with magical thinking, the childhood wishing-well that requires nothing of us. Hope’s walking companion must be critical thinking, that sober, real-world acknowledgement of the challenges you face, yet remain undefeated by them.

In business, the best advisor says: “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end – which you can never afford to lose – with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

In verse, the poet says: “Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts.”

Still Calling… Can You Hear It?

Here are some facts.

Last January, when 1,200 physicians and advanced practice providers were asked in a national survey why they pursued a career in medicine, 90% said it was in response to a “calling.”

And while that initial feeling of a call has diminished over time for many, 81% said that inaugural clarion for choosing medicine remains a wellspring of motivation.

“While some pursue a career in medicine for stability or financial gain, most practitioners are motivated by a greater desire to serve humanity,” say the researchers. “It’s exactly this factor — the sense of fulfilling a higher purpose — that keeps most clinicians inspired day-to-day, despite the growing obstacles they face.”

A vocational call – that pull of purpose – is a gravitational force that compels you toward a future that may, at the same moment you feel it, seem distinctly unreasonable and, at times, inconvenient. To answer it is a kind of leap of faith.

“These findings,” say the researchers, “give us many reasons to feel hopeful.”

Most clinicians still hear the calling of their origin-story, suggests the survey, even if the sound of the ring has faded over the years and is a bit lost amid the noise of, well, everything that you know.

Everything you know? That our air is thick with cynicism. It can feel as if our cultural and political environment celebrates problems, deflects responsibility and paints the bleakest story of our future.

Healthcare can fall prey to the narrative, too. Maybe it’s in our DNA. After all, clinicians are professional trouble-finders before they become caregivers.

And, yes, our system of care is riddled with systemic problems that are beyond the scope of a single person to remedy.

But that is when hope can be the most powerful and unexpected medicine.

“Cynicism is cowardice” and corrosive when it saturates a society, warned James Mattis, the former Secretary of Defense who spent four years as a Marine and likely knows a thing or two about overcoming challenges. A different kind of hope warrior.

“Cynicism fosters a distrust of reality. It is nothing less than a form of surrender. It provokes a suspicion that hidden malign forces are at play. It instills a sense of victimhood. It may be psychically gratifying in the moment, but it solves nothing.”

Instead, just today, shed that suffocating armor of cynicism and risk appearing naïve, though you are not.

Risk being the Golden Retriever who is always, always happy to see you. Or, as a great poet wrote, “Hope is the thing with feathers” that sings “on the strangest Sea.”

Have a little faith that while things may indeed be awful, many, many people want to see them improve, just as you do. You’re not alone. And we are not hopeless.