Getting to Yes

When is it okay not to wear mask in the outpatient clinic and why? If anything, my quick answer would be to show patients our smile. And face, too.

One of the embarrassing moments is when a patient entered my room this afternoon, studied me for a while and leaned toward me saying, "Doctor, you look haggard. And losing quite a bit of weight."

I went on to explain my indulgence with running lately, and I laughed it off.

Later in the same clinic session, a second patient recounted to me how I looked dog-tired and kaput.

"Why so?" I asked, my curiosity piqued. Isn't that odd? Why, I asked myself, would more than one patient tell me the same thing within the same afternoon? There must be a lot of truth in my patients' observation.

Before the next patient came in, I rose from my chair and took a walk to the bathroom. Yup, a bathroom visit is more or less the concept of going to the balcony. That comes from the groundbreaking book Getting to Yes by William Ury: If life is a stage and we are all actors on that stage, then balcony is the only place from which we can see the entire play unfolding with greater clarity.

Which brings me to the prequel to the classic, Getting to Yes with Yourself, my recent fascinating read. To apply what I've learned from William Ury, I put myself in my shoes and listened empathetically to my story. Little by little, it dawned on me that I had been provoked by several emotion-charged e-mails and telephone call. I could have got bogged down by the conflicts, without noticing my clenched jaw, face in knots and cortisol swooshing through my bloodstream. With the me-search bit by bit in the metaphorical balcony, I had a chance to talk myself out of the anger. As I listened to myself, I noticed the need to get past the blame game and stop myself from hatred. I wanted to be free and so I let it go.

Forgiving those impolite and sour conversations doesn't mean condoning what they did. The key is to free myself from their weight. I have come to realize the choice to say yes to life, shape my life, and be myself after reading William Ury's book. The truth is that, it's our birthright, a frame of mind to feel less dependent on others to satisfy our needs for happiness. I can choose how I define those words, no matter how bad, and move on.

As taught by William Ury, I may not have the power to change the challenging experiences, but I do have the power to change the impact factor I assign to them.

By getting to yes with myself, I wish I can reclaim my life. I see how I can take a deep breath and get out of a dark tunnel, shaking off the dog poo I happened to have stepped on.