Ok, so I watch a lot of TV. A LOT OF TV. I watch it when I crochet at night, for hours on end. I watch a lot of crap TV because I usually don’t want to pay full attention to the screen. But I think there are sometimes some gems on TV that are worth mentioning. I only really felt compelled to share this anecdote because it came up in a conversation I had with Manda this weekend.
These lines are from the most recent episode of Grey’s Anatomy. If you haven’t watched it yet, I’ll try not to spoiler anything important. If you don’t watch the show, I’ll just set it up by saying that Dr. Cristina Yang has befriended and sort of been mentored by Dr. Thomas (aka Mr. Feeny from Boy Meets World). Dr. Thomas is super old, and his hospital doesn’t really respect him anymore and is waiting for the chance to give him the boot. But Dr. Yang really likes him and feels he has a lot to teach her still, even though he is all ancient and curmudgeon-y. During a surgery, he has a bunch of super nice stuff to randomly say to her.
I’m kind of paraphrasing. If you want to watch the scene, here’s a link, but here are my favorite parts:
Dr. Thomas, “You will be the surgeon of your generation. People will try to diminish you, as they did me, and they will fail. Mediocre surgeons will see you and feel themselves wilting in your shadow. Do not shrink to console them.”
While he phrases his thoughts in almost a negative way, I felt very uplifted by them! Basically, ignore the haters, and just be awesome.
Manda and I were talking about someone she knows, and how he said he was kind of afraid to succeed because his friends might look at him differently or feel bad about themselves or feel jealous or something like that. I told her to tell him to watch this episode of Grey’s and to take Dr. Thomas’ advice. If you have the will and the capacity to be excellent, why would you rob yourself of being excellent? Manda also made a good point. By being excellent, you can uplift and motivate others around you. They can make that choice, in their head, whether seeing your success will inspire their own negativity or positivity.
So, like, go be excellent and stuff! No shrinking! Happy Monday!
