Cake Boss: 5/4/12

The past week has involved both an exciting new experience, and a quite negative new experience, accompanied by sick irony, reaffirming my belief in karma. My week was flush with medical circumstances, to say the least. In a matter of less than 24 hours I experienced the two extremes of the medical world — being the doctor, and being the patient.

My Friday morning began at 11 pm on the previous Thursday night, as I was driven to Highland Hospital in Oakland. I was to shadow an emergency room doctor there on his late night/early morning shift, from 11pm to 4:30 am. There I followed the doctor around, observing what was going on around me, which mostly consisted of visiting patients in the ER. Never in my life had I seen so many people with so many different medical issues. From abdomen pain to stab victims, you name it, they were there. Little did I know, only fifteen hours later, I would be in their position.

After waking up that morning, exhausted from my meager four hours of sleep, I slipped into my dress clothes for my big lacrosse game against Piedmont. I stepped onto the field at 5:30 pm, the long lasting rivalry between Berkeley and Piedmont strengthening my determination for the win. During the game I bent down for a ground ball. Suddenly I was checked in the back, sending me sprawling into the Piedmont player in front of me, who sent me flying to the ground with another check. My arm was broken. As I lay there writhing on the ground for a good minute, I thought about the kid’s arm who I had broken earlier this season. Oh the irony. I had just paid my dues to Karma, and soon found myself being driven to the ER by my dad, holding my limp arm in my right hand. Now instead of giving attention, I was receiving it.

After such an eventful 24 hours, I find I now believe in karma — not in a superstitious way, but in a more explicable way. I truly believe that we live in a society in which what goes around comes around. Although breaking my arm playing lacrosse after breaking someone else’s earlier seems and most likely is coincidental, these events gave me insight into the cycle of actions and consequences present in our society. Every day, people and especially teenagers make decisions without thinking about their consequences. Although it may seem okay at the time, many decisions become regrettable because of the consequences. For example, the decision to steal without the owner knowing can lead up to serious guilt and regret, almost serving as a natural punishment for the thief’s offense. More generally, the worse a life somebody leads, the worse it will most likely end up. All negative events happening to a person can often be attributed to previous negative actions. Leading a life of positive actions will create positive repercussions, resulting in an enjoyable, and what I believe to be a successful lifestyle. In essence, don’t act impulsively, and remember to look before you jump.