Wait 8 Seconds and Go

We all have plans.

Plans are good. They give us focus, and they help us figure out what to do next, who to interact with, which classes to take, how to learn, and many other important things. Not knowing what’s next is the main source of anxiety for 20 somethings, so we come up with big plans to tell people when we’re asked, “so what’s next for you?”

Plans are good, but they are not everything.

If we live our lives completely focused on our own plans, then we may miss what is actually coming next. We may not take the job because it doesn’t fit the trajectory we designed. We may not ask that person out because they are not like the people we dated before. We may not move to that city because our dream job doesn’t have a huge population there.

We focus on the future like it is the only thing that we need.

We fill our worlds with activities, meetings, and relationships that fit our own idea of “perfect.” Each move is calculated, whether we recognize it or not. Some of us are more likely to shut down in the face of change. I am one of those people.

I never let myself go outside of my plan. I did the experiments I wanted to, and I took the classes I thought would be better for my career. I filled my days with seminars, meetings, workshops, and experiments that I thought would serve my own future. It didn’t matter that I had become more social, more well-rounded, or more adept at science than ever before. All I wanted was to be the best scientist that could become the best PI.

Then a priest told me something in Confession that really hit me:

“Sometimes we fill our lives with things because we lack gratitude for what is already there.”

Much like everyone else, I had filled my life with my future instead of looking at what I already had. When we try to change our lives to fit our own plans, we lose sight of the beautiful things we already have. Sure, we should all be trying to meet the future, but we should also be willing to adapt to what we receive as a consequence of our actions.

There are amazing things happening in our lives every day. If we only accept what we think we want, then we miss the point of acting in the first place.

Every day we have the opportunity to make our lives better. It may be a small action, like trying a new food, but that action can enhance our lives for the better. There is a caveate to this idea though…

We have to take the time to notice what we have before us.

Allow me to give an example from my lab life. On Holy Thursday, I helped my friend stain numerous mouse brains to image for our PI’s grant. A few days later we went to the microscope room to take the pictures. What with all that had been happening in lab, I was really hoping that we could get a representative picture or two.

The screen was completely black.

“You know who did the primaries?” I looked back at the screeen, “Me. Sorry I screwed up your experiment man.”

“No. Don’t say that,” he said.

I sighed and thought for a moment. Our PI had plans, and we couldn’t just give up now, not when his grant’s due date was coming up. I thought about all we had already done for the project, and I thought about the tissue on the slide. Clearly there were cells there, and we did go through the protocol as we knew how to.

There was something there.

We just needed to wait a moment.

“I know,” I said a second later, “But I think I know how to fix it!”

I turned the exposure up to 8 seconds, which is a really long time to wait for a tissue sample. Regardless, I knew that it would work. We already had brain tissue and fluorescent antibodies. All we needed to do was wait for the light to emit back to the camera.

It worked.

I’ll admit, it is painful to sit and wait. My sophomores tease me for being so impatient in lab sometimes. However, it is all the more necessary to be patient when we are observing what is before us. Whether it be something in lab, or just some situation in our lives, we need to be willing to stop, breathe, and think about what we already have.

We need to be grateful for what we are already doing to make our lives better.

We need to be thankful for the people that we already have in our lives.

We need to recognize how great we already are.

Just because something seems incorrect at the moment does not mean that it is “wrong” for us. Life is hard. That does not mean that we can just throw in the towel and throw away all of our hard work. That does not mean that we have to change everything. The trials and tribulations that come with life give us an opportunity to recognize the strength and ability we have to make things better.

Sometimes that means we wait.

Sometimes that means we take the opportunities that don’t fit our plans exactly.

Nothing will go the way you want it to. Sure, you may get lucky and have a few easy successes, but at the end of the day, there will always be some troubleshooting to do. You will need to learn new things. You will need to get to know people. You will need to adapt.

But that doesn’t mean you aren’t following your plan.

You are just making your plans better.

If you are given the oppotunity to go a little outside your plans this week, take the chance. If you are stressed out about everything you have to do, take the time to notice how much you have already done.

Our plans aren’t perfect.

But they can be perfected.

Just Do It

Life is scary y’all.

There are so many ways to screw up. You can make a mistake in your job, and it can cost your career. You can move to a new city, and you can end up alone. You can vote for someone, and people can define you by that vote alone.

Why would we want to take any risks?

Why would we want to do anything?

Most of us choose to be passive. We choose to avoid confronting those who have helped or hurt us. We choose to take the easy way out. We choose to stay in the same place, not taking a single risk. We choose to let the world define us, and we do not try to make any corrections.

It’s easier to play the passive role.

But it doesn’t help anyone.

In fact, by not taking risks and trying new things, we can hold everyone around us back.

This has been the case in my lab for the past few months. Because the older graduate student does not want to step forward and share what he wants, I have been taking the majority of the work for the lab. I actively try to work, but there is just too much for me to do. It killed my sleep, my academics, and most importantly, my relationships with the rest of the lab. However, because he was the senior member of the lab, I chose to take the “easy” path and not try to make any changes.

For two months I essentially  ran the lab on my own.

It sucked.

Eventually I talked to our boss about it. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being a jerk to my coworker, and I wanted to fix the problem. Not just for myself, but for the other graduate student.

Our boss was very understanding, and he was surprised that I didn’t mention anything sooner. I usually would bring up issues as soon as I noticed them, but because I didn’t want to take a risk, I ended up hurting the lab dynamics. At the end of the brief conversation, we made a plan to improve communication so that we could be more active.

And suddenly I felt the weight lift off my shoulders.

I think the main place where we do not want to take risks is with relationships. For some reason, our culture has taken on this idea that asking someone on a simple date is asking them to be in a committed relationship. We fear their reaction to our feelings, and we avoid telling people how we feel about them. We listen to love songs, flirt, and pretend that nothing is going on.

We don’t want to lose our friendship.

The thing is, we can’t just keep sitting on our thumbs. I’ve never been offended by someone expressing an interest in me, even if I did not want to date them. The mere fact that someone was interested in getting to know me better was truly flattering. In a world where women are beat down for not being “good enough,” it is comforting to hear the phrase, “we should hang out more.”

Asking someone on a simple coffee date doesn’t express some deep rooted emotion. It just lets them know that you are worthy of their time.

But we don’t take the risk. We don’t let people know how we feel. We let them live in a quandry, thinking that maybe you’re just flirting with them because you’re a flirty person, or thinking that they are insane for sharing emotions.

We fear rejection more than we wish to see our crush’s smile.

But do we ever think about what our secret affections do to them?

One of my strongest moments in undergrad was when I was a sophomore and way too interested in my best guy friend for my own good. I kept it secret from him for months because I didn’t want to lose him. So every time he noticed a pretty girl or didn’t prioritize me, I felt a little dejected. I would walk away from the front desk, and I felt the pain of rejection without even sharing how I felt.

I told my best guy friend how I felt about him, and I told him that regardless of his response that I would still be his friend.

He didn’t like me back.

But he did understand why I reacted to things differently, and he was more sensitive to how I used to feel. Yes, it took some time for both of us to get over the shock of that moment, but eventually we came around. My friend was able to help me deal with following crushes even!

A year later I asked my friend why he didn’t like me back.

What he said changed my view on every rejection I had following that day.

“It’s not that I don’t like you, Felicity. Me not being romantic with you does not mean that I have a problem with you. I like everything about you. If I had a problem with you, I would not hang out with you. You would not be my friend. But I like everything about you, and that’s why you are my best friend.”

My friend knew how much he meant to me, but he wanted me to know how much I meant to him in return. Sometimes romantic relationships don’t happen. Sometimes you get a date or two and realize that it would not work out. However, the love that does exist at the friendship level is real, and we should not fear taking the risk to let them know how we truly feel.

Fearing the future does not help us move forward.

Today is National “Take a Risk” Day, and I encourage everyone to take a risk today. Do something that will move your career forward. Tell someone how you feel. Have a dance party in a public place. Wear that outfit you think people will judge you for owning.

Be confident.

Take a risk.

I promise you that it’ll be worth it.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

and-which is more- you’ll be a Man, my son!

~If, Rudyard Kipling

Mice and Easter

I would like to share a story. 

It was a cold and gloomy Tuesday afternoon. The permacloud settled in the sky as I dragged my feet towards my apartment. Everything felt like a rut. The same experiments, the same prayers, the same food, the same people…everything was the same.

I hated it.

I was tired, and I could feel the slightest hint of a virus in my sinuses. Should I continue to live this way, constantly exerting effort towards nothing, I knew that I would get sick. I knew that it would be disasterous for me to continue on this path.

But it was all I had known.

However, there was a change that I could make. I could be honest with myself and let go of the things I should have released months ago. Even though I knew that I could be of great help to these people, I was not wanted.

I did not want to let go.

I did not want to change.

With my hands shaking out of sheer exhaustion, I typed out a text or two, doing all that I could to get the last glimpse of closure I had from my past before I made the change I knew God wanted for me. My eyes were dry, and my heart was racing. It hurt to think that a task God had given me so long ago was now finally over.

I had to change my ministry.

And with that change, I asked God to give me a better sense of direction. I asked God to be as clear as possible. I asked God to send me a sign that I was doing the right thing, that I was going where He wanted me to go. All I wanted was some clarity.

I expected something to happen the next day. If I was going to make a big life decision, then I wanted to be reassured that I was doing the right thing. If I was going to stop allowing myself to be walked over, then I wanted to see my strength in the real world. I wanted something to happen the next day.

Nothing happened.

On the third day, I came in to lab to work with my students. I had very little of my own research to do that day, so I took on the “Lab Mom” role, and I fluttered about the lab, asking about experiments and making sure no one was overwhelmed or lost. Sure, I was a bit flustered, but at least they were ok. 

Then I got very tired.

So. Very. Tired.

Exhausted and angry tears pushed on the back of my eyes as I went through the protocols I needed to learn for my project. My life had taken a turn towards active learning and intentional relationships, and yet here I was, still in the lab, still struggling to juggle 12 undergrads and my own projects. I had “died to myself,” and yet I was still the same person, someone who could not even make a simple joke.

It seemed like all I had prayed for was missing.

And I was pissed.

That’s not the end of the story though. We’ll get back to that. First, I want to tell you another story…

It was a gloomy Friday. People were shouting angrily around a well-respected Rabbi. He had blasphemed, and He was going to be put to death. Off to the side of the crowd was a man named Simon. A fairly normal dude, but nonetheless, the soldiers enlisted him to help this Rabbi walk to His death.

They struggled and toiled through the hot desert sun. Blood dripped on Simon’s face, but he did not stop carring the Cross beside the man whom they called Jesus.

Simon was relieved of his charge at the top of the hill. He stood as the brave man he walked beside screamed in agony in the unison with the sound of a hammer against a nail. There was nothing Simon could do for this man now. It was up to Jesus to get on the Cross. It was up to Jesus to end everything.

Simon could not help Him anymore.

He did all that he could

And yet Simon was still bruised and beaten, much like the man hanging on the Tree.

The next day Simon went home. People spoke of a Messiah, but Jesus did not seem to be that man. If He were, then maybe He would have stoped the crowds. If He actually was going to save Israel, then maybe something would have happened today. Yet on this particular Saturday, nothing seemed to happen.

Simon nursed his wounds, but there was nothing left for him to do, not anymore.

That’s not the end of the story though. Let me return to the first story.

I came back to the lab with a cup of coffee in my hand. My advisor strolled in to the lab, and he looked at my undergrad and I. He wanted to know when we could get upstairs to euthanize our oldest mouse. She was particularly old, so I thought it would not be a big deal if we waited.

“Why?” I asked.

“She’s sick.”

Now for those of my Dear Readers who are not Biologists, a sick mouse can be a very good thing. In this case, we removed a gene that we believed could compensate for another protein. No one believed that this protein, STARD9, would really be important. There were even days that I wondered if STARD9 mattered at all.

For over a year, that knockout mouse showed no signs of weakness.

But on that day, the mouse died from complicatons associated with our disease of interest.

In one day, with one mouse, our lab changed. Suddenly all of my experiments were more crucial than ever before. Suddenly I found myself taking new risks, planning better experiments, and finding a solid conviction in myself to answer the questions we had been searching for for so long.

Our lab had hope again.

In another world, in another life, there stood a man named Simon. He was sitting in the city, just waiting for something to happen. His back still ached from The Cross, but no one could tell. No one needed to know the hurt because it did not matter. At least, that’s what everyone thought.

But then the Apostles came running to the tomb.

It was empty.

On that day, the man rose from the grave, and the world changed forever.

Our world had hope again.

I think we all think that we need to see the results of our actions right away. We want to be recognized for the hardships we face. We want people to believe in us. We want to believe in ourselves. Yet when the going gets tough, we find ourselves in a state of doubt and sorrow.

We let go of our past, and we expect the future to be in our midst.

But the thing is…

The most important part of the story is what happened in the background. As we wait for the next big thing, we are changing. We are growing in some way, some form, that allows us to fit in to the next part of the story. If we were to just jump to the end of the story, we would miss all of the little pieces that matter so very much.

On the day that nothing happened for me, I was told that I would be a great PI some day.

On the day that nothing happened for Simon, Jesus was breaking open the gates of Heaven.

Every Good Friday has an Easter Morning. You just need to get through the Holy Saturday to get there.