Kindness

We all know Florence Nightingale. Not many of us know Christie Watson, though. Not until I've read The Language of Kindness.

Her book recounts the story of her life as a nurse. And stories about her patients. Some of her stories will make your heart sing, but others will make you cringe. Christie retold her nursing career after 20 years in NHS hospitals. In a confessional style. Even it's often the junior nurses who tend to feel the most, as Christie herself admitted, she remains to own a tender heart after developing the senior level of thick skin.

Let me illustrate. I feel in awe of Christie Watson when she brought us a wondrous portrait of fourteen-year-old Aaron confined to bed, oxygen tubes inserted into his lungs stuffed by thick mucus of cystic fibrosis. Christie didn't tell Aaron's mum that Aaron would be fine. She'd never tell any relative that: she has learned her lesson. Because none of us really knows.

Christie simply searched inside herself for comforting words, helping the tired boy get ready for a heart-lung transplant. Christie was shattered by the experience of waiting for organ donation. When they were waiting, each second became a minute, each minute an hour. Days became weeks and months and years. When Aaron was waiting, time became shorter; he was getting nearer to the mortuary. A count down.

Christie rubbed cocoa butter onto Aaron’s dry knees, took away his Game Boy and swore to guard it with her life.

The heartbreaking coda came after Aaron woke up from the heart-lung transplant and recovered, enjoying much strawberry ice-cream as he wanted. Christie helped Aaron write a difficult letter to the mother of the boy who gave him his heart. The lines make us laugh: "Did your son like strawberry ice-cream?" And cry: "It's not fair that your son died so I can live. I absolutely promise I will never forget him."

Race

If you want to soak up the summer MacLehose Trail scenery on foot, but are not quite up to the ultra endurance trail race, the Midsummer Race 1 is perfect, or so I was told.

Undulating but never steep, the 14km route near Shing Mun Reservoir takes in all sorts of terrain. It takes a bit of nerve, considering the season of this event when temperatures are hitting 34 degrees Celsius. It doesn't matter if you are elite or beginner - you're supposed to bring at least 1.5 litres of water.  

To begin with, I didn't read the instruction on racing gear carefully and brought next to nothing. A mobile phone, and that's all. I didn't bring water at all. Sniff. Sniff. To say that it's an oversight was an understatement. Seriously, one can simply lose marbles with dehydration, causing a rise in temperature until one’s brain is cooking on the inside.

Before long, I realized the trail race was more difficult than I'd imagined. That's a mix of concrete and trail. Muddy too. Racing against the clock is no easy feat. Being distracted could turn me into a Humpty Dumpty off the cliff in the blink of an eye. Instead of aiming for a personal best record, I told myself, I should aim for completing the race in one piece.

And I did. Indeed, so addled was I that I forgot to press the stopwatch the instant I crossed the finish line.

All in all this was a magical experience, of a kind I had never known before. 

Wellness

Mention the term corporate culture, and big cerebral concepts such as shared mission will come to mind. True, cognitive culture sets the tone for the team to thrive.

Imagine you're a manager who seeks to construct the best workplace, and your organization charter is awash in ideas for bringing in purpose and values. But I argued otherwise during our corporate's annual forum today.

So far we have advocated too much on those big things - mission, vision, blah, blah, blah -  but we somehow forget the most basic human needs. Think about the hierarchy of needs model published by the psychologist Abraham Maslow. At its most bottom of the pyramid, there are physiological needs such as sleeping and eating, and security. They're far more important than the top aspiration like self-actualization. Anyone noble desires for transcendence, you might think. Think again.

In the real world, it's next to impossible to mingle our aspirations with our needs. The things we desire the most are the things we need the least.

What my hardworking doctor colleagues need the most, as a matter of fact, is time for bathroom visit, a break for lunch, or a cup of coffee.

Who won't?