All The Small Things

So many of us feel to small to make a difference. Most millenials are at the bottom of the totem pole, wondering when they will have more responsibilities. Anyone in graduate school is aware that they are the bottom of the bottom, sometimes even having less influence than the undergraduate volunteers.

When we’re in the rough, it feels like there is no real value to our contribution.

Biomedical researchers, such as myself and many of my peers at Notre Dame, often feel so separated from the patients that it seems like we don’t really have any connection to treatment, nor do we recognize that there is any value to our work in the eyes of those patients.

We know that it takes decades to get a drug on the market

And sometimes those treatments are ineffective once moved to human patients.

When we see ourselves as too small, we tend to try to do more of what we have, just to matter a little bit more. Instead of trying to be the most effective with what little we have, we choose to over-do it. We burn ourselves out.

We get worse.

From June to October, I worked in this way. I told myself that if I just got the little things done that I would finally be able to work on my “big idea” that would “matter more.” My advisor turned me down, and I understood. The hypothesis was not part of our mission, and we had to take our priorities seriously.

Nonetheless, I was burnt out

But then I went home for a wedding, wherein I had a conversation which changed my perspective on work in a way that all of us need to hear every once in a while.

I was sitting in a hole-in-the-wall place in East Nashville with the wedding party. One of the grooms folk asked me what my research was on. Because I never dismiss an opportunity to tell my story, I shared the story of the Vaughan lab and its mission to create a targeted therapy for Niemann Pick Type C.

“Wow,” the girl looked down at her hot chicken, “You must really feel the weight of responsibility with that project.”

“Oh no…” I shook my head, “I’m very removed from the patients. The treatment won’t become a thing for at least fifteen years. What I really want to do-“

“No no,” the girl interrupted me before I could go down my rabbit-hole of self-pity, “Your work is important. These are the first studies towards a drug. You said those kids are in pain and don’t have any medicine? Your work…that gives them-“

“Hope,” I interrupted this time.

I did not listen to the girl’s response. My mind went silent, and I felt my blood pressure decrease. Sure, the drug concentrations and the extra assays were tedious, but they were important. Each experiment told the exact same story, but with each confirmation, the patients had more and more evidence to believe in a new therapy, one that did not exist before.

Hope increases with constant little reminders of the good.

All of my little work, all little work, means something to the world.

“But it turns out, I was just too close to the puzzle to see the picture that was forming,” 

~Ted Mosby

In relationships, it’s not the big moments that define the relationship, but rather it is the many small details that reveal the truth of the relationship. In science, it’s not just the drugs that improve treatments, but rather it is the many clinical trials and small experiments that improve prognosis and patient health. In life, it is not the most powerful nor the most visible things that change the world, but rather it is the many small people and actions that make life happier.

It’s ok to be the little guy for a little while.

Because you are important to someone. You are a source of hope and joy to someone, no matter how insignificant you think your work or your impact may be.