Don't Take Things Personally

I can't believe it has been almost two weeks since I started my pre-residency.  Time certainly does fly when you are enjoying what you do.

Everyday I spend in the ward or at the ER is a learning experience for me.  But if there is one important thing I learned this week, I guess that is to "not take things personally".

I am constantly surrounded by patients who are depressed, paranoid, manic, agitated and even hostile and violent ones.  I am at the receiving end of whatever thoughts and emotions they hold inside of them.  I have been cursed and shouted at.  I must admit that it scared me at first, but I knew that it was one of the many hazards of my workplace and that I should never let it affect me.

In reality, I guess one reason why a person often ends up being miserable is because he allows other peoples opinion to affect him.  He takes in whatever insults or negative emotions being thrown at him and eventually consumes him in the end.  But if we all learn to be immune to the opinion of others, more so if the intention is to put us down, and not take everything being said against us personally, then the burden lies on the other person and not to us.

So try not to take things personally, as what Don Miguel Ruiz said, Nothing others people do is because of you. It is because of themselves.