"So, how was your vacation?" My patient asked me. "You don't look very tan. Did Hurricane Michael keep you off the beach?"
I laughed a little. "I was in New Orleans for a medical conference," I told the older lady. "Hurricane Michael was fortunately pretty far east of us. I guess it's hard to get tan from fluorescent lights and I was inside learning a chunk of the time I was there."
"Oh," she said, a little disappointed. "I thought maybe you went somewhere interesting."
"New Orleans is pretty interesting," I said. "But it was more about me learning things I didn't know before. Don't I look smarter than the last time you saw me?"
"Not really," she said. "But I'm glad if you learned a lot."
I generally go to some medical conference every year. It isn't to meet people, to get a tan, or even to see the sights in different places, it is to sit through somewhat boring lectures and learn a few things that I can put into practice to help my patients.
Maybe I could get by without continuing medical education, but I know that over time, my patients would suffer. I want to be the best doctor I can be for the sake of the people I serve.
In any arena of life we have the option of coasting by or of putting forth maximum effort. Some things probably aren't very important -- it probably doesn't matter if you develop ultimate skill in buttering bread or brushing your teeth, but in most things it is better to do our best.
"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might..." the writer of Ecclesiastes wrote many years ago.
He was right. We will have so much more satisfaction and those around us will gain as well, if we do all things, as if we were working for the Lord.
Even if maybe our tans aren't the best.
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