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<div class="story-meta-left"> <div class="story-logo"> <a href="https://www.dailygood.org"> <img alt="DailyGood" src="https://www.karunanews.org/pics/90x90.jpg"> </a> </div> <div class="story-meta-info"> <div class="story-author">By <a href="/author?name=On%20Being">On Being</a></div> <div class="story-details"> <span class="story-date">Jun 7, 2019</span> <span class="story-read-time">16 min read</span> </div> <div class="story-source">Source: <a href="https://onbeing.org/programs/abraham-verghese-and-denise-pope-how-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up/" target="_blank">onbeing.org</a></div> </div> </div>  <div class="story-meta-right">  <div class="utility-buttons"> <div class="dropdown"> <button class="utility-btn translate-btn dropdown-toggle py-1" type="button" id="translationDropdown" data-bs-toggle="dropdown" aria-expanded="false"> <i class="fa fa-language me-2" aria-hidden="true"></i>Cherokee </button> <ul class="dropdown-menu dropdown-menu-end translation-dropdown" 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id="dg_story"> <div class="dark-link perm_post"> alternative, and I see plenty of that. So if you start with that premise, and it’s not hard to do in medicine, then literally every day is a good day. How can you not bring your best to it?</p> <p><b>Mr. Feineh:</b>And the last question I have here is from a young person who went to a competitive school in Palo Alto …</p> <p>[<em>laughter</em>]</p> <p>… and finds him or herself struggling to question what success looks like. “I feel like I have few role models. Even the three of you have successful careers that were explored in your introductions.” And this person is curious to hear your thoughts about career, mentorship-building, how to create some of these pipelines, and a final direct action to help students expand some of their opportunities.</p> <p><b>Ms. Pope:</b>We hear this question a lot from kids. There’s a couple of different answers. One is that people assume that there’s a straight and narrow path, that I knew when I was 18 that I was going to be sitting up here today. And I can tell you, absolutely not. I didn’t even think I should be up here with this guy, anyway, now. So I think that idea of a straight and narrow path is really outdated, and as a young person — so part of this is, your prefrontal cortex — getting into the medical side of things — is not fully developed. And the prefrontal cortex is what allows you to see and plan ahead. So, in your head you think you have to have it all figured out, and you think it’s very linear — get the grades, get into college, go to grad school, have a career, get to money. That has been said over and over and over to us.</p> <p>And what we’re trying to say is, you have no idea where your life is going to lead, and so, you have to be open to the possibilities. Find lots of different mentors. Take lots of different classes and things that are exciting. Pursue things that bring you joy because you’re just never going to know. I was supposed to be a journalist, and it just didn’t happen, for a whole bunch of reasons, and I fell into education and loved it. And then I didn’t take a normal path for a professor. I’m looking at Deborah Stipek in the audience because she kept saying to me, “Come on, let’s do the normal path.” And I was like, “No, I want to do something a little different.” And it’s definitely paid off. But there’s no way I could’ve foreseen this.</p> <p><b>Ms. Tippett:</b>No. No.</p> <p><b>Dr. Verghese:</b>In my case, I got off the treadmill of medicine at some point because I was so moved by the HIV experience during that era when there were no treatments, and it was just a —</p> <p><b>Ms. Tippett:</b>You were in Tennessee, in a rural area.</p> <p><b>Dr. Verghese:</b>I was in Tennessee in a small town. And I really thought that if I didn’t do something, I would die. I would just die from the stress of it. I wanted to do HIV care the rest of my life, and I still am, and many people have fallen off the way. But I knew I would have to take a break, and I decided to go to the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and cashed in my retirement and my 401(k) and all that stuff. And it was considered academic suicide, professional suicide, but I felt that I had to do it.</p> <p>And then I was finishing there and ready to take an academic job, and I had some really good opportunities to stay at the University of Iowa, a great school, or University of North Carolina was wanting to hire me, and I suddenly realized, I would never write in those places because I would be so busy trying to crank out NIH grants and all that. And so, I went to Texas Tech El Paso. I could literally throw a stone out of my window and hit someone in Juárez, Mexico. And yet, it was the most beautiful place to practice, because in that county hospital we saw everything in young people, untreated; it felt very meaningful, but my evenings were mine to write and to develop my voice, and my weekends were mine. And I eventually got hired to Stanford in a roundabout way, largely because of that. And had I come to Stanford in the first place, just about now I would be losing my tenure and heading to El Paso, Texas, probably.</p> <p>[<em>laughter</em>]</p> <p>So I tell students that life is ironic. It’s never going to be the path that you planned, and if you’re not open to what your heart’s telling you, within reason, then you’re probably not going to be as happy.</p> <p><b>Ms. Pope:</b>And I just want to add, because there is research to back this up, that we actually spent a year, at Challenge Success, looking at college outcomes and asking, does it matter where you go to college? We looked at it in terms of finances; we looked at it in terms of job satisfaction; we looked at it in terms of well being. And all the research points to, for the most part, it really doesn’t matter. If you are a person who comes from a very poor background, a person of color, it may matter more in terms of finances than for others, but for the vast majority, whether you go to community college or you go to Stanford, in terms of job satisfaction in the future, in terms of wellbeing, and in terms of, really, finances, it’s not the name. So, that should bring you —</p> <p><b>Ms. Tippett:</b>What is it that makes a difference, then, if it’s not …?</p> <p><b>Ms. Pope:</b>It’s actually the level of engagement you bring to college. And it would be the same in the workplace and the same in the hospital.</p> <p><b>Ms. Tippett:</b>And I think, when you say engagement, you’re not just talking about whether you get really good grades.</p> <p><b>Ms. Pope:</b>No, it’s the opposite. Some of your most engaged people get the worst grades because they’re out there going deep into what they want to do, and they’re not following the rules, and the teacher doesn’t know what to do with that. No.</p> <p>It’s engagement, where you are excited and passionate about what you’re doing, you’re involved in your community — it turns out that’s very important; it could be the bowling league or a church community or whatever, but you feel a part of that place — you have mentors; and you find ways to apply what you learn. So, internships or deep research — it’s actually, to give a shameless plug for the Haas Center, what the Haas Center does [<em>laughs</em>] for kids here at Stanford.</p> <p><b>Ms. Tippett:</b>I want to say that something that came up in some of the conversations I’ve had at the Haas Center in the last couple of weeks is the problematic way we work with the success story, which is often about somebody who comes from a really unlikely background — really, the way the narrative goes, an inferior place — that’s assumed, a place without opportunity, who had nothing going for them, and then, the success in achieving, all the ways we define success. And also, it’s often about leaving that place they came from. And we do have to learn how to see and honor all the forms of successful life which are not measured in a job title.</p> <p><b>Ms. Pope:</b>It’s really important. I hear this from — I work with a lot of students who are trying to figure out when to have kids and if you leave the workplace to have kids and — “Then I’m ‘just’ a mom.” And this idea that you’re “just” a mom — first of all, it’s the hardest job you will ever do; it’s way harder than any other job I’ve ever had, is being a mom. I love it, but it’s really hard.<br /> And that idea of, I think …</p> <p><b>Ms. Tippett:</b>And it is literally lifegiving.</p> <p>[<em>laughter</em>]</p> <p><b>Ms. Pope:</b>It is literally lifegiving. And, I think, adding a thinking, feeling, empathetic, morally driven person to this world is probably the most important thing you can do. Or helping others, if you — I’m not saying everyone has to be a parent, but helping others to live in the way that people should live. And that has nothing to do with what you do for a living.</p> <p>[<em>music: “Intermodal Blues” by Michael Rossetto</em>]</p> <p><b>Ms. Tippett:</b>I’m Krista Tippett, and this is <em>On Being</em>. Today with Stanford researcher Denise Pope and physician and author Abraham Verghese.</p> <p><b>Ms. Tippett:</b>So what I feel this is circling around to is actually the notion of vocation. It’s our calling as human beings, not just our calling to a profession. And in fact, I think, the reality of life is that you have many vocations in the course of a life. And even if you have the job you want, there are times when your parenting or your relationship or your caregiving for a parent is a much more important part of your vocation than the job you’re doing.</p> <p>And also this idea that to work in order to put food on your table and feed your family is meaningful work. I feel like if we develop a more expansive sense of vocation that is in sync with what we’re learning and actually what we desire, that vocation, it will be something multifaceted. It will be the work we do, which at times may define us and, at times, may not; it will be the people we love; it will be the people we serve; it will be our community. I feel like even that could be a mental shift, like taking in placebo as actually a superpower, rather than a trick.</p> <p><b>Dr. Verghese:</b>Well, I love the idea of a calling. Obviously, I think that that was how I felt about medicine; it was truly a calling. I couldn’t imagine something more romantic than that. And sometimes I feel that there’s too many mercenary decisions made to go into medicine, not necessarily because of a calling. But that’s rare. Most people do feel a calling. But I must say, I think the millennials are much more willing to truly follow their calling.</p> <p>I have a son who’s a musician in Santa Fe. He’s 32 years old. What he really is, is a barista.</p> <p><b>Ms. Tippett:</b>I have one of those too.</p> <p><b>Dr. Verghese:</b>But he’s a musician, and his music’s good. But I fear for him. I had all the traditional worries about him. And I had the conversation with him, and he just stopped me in my tracks by something he said. He said, “Dad, I just want to make enough” — because I would say, “How are you going to hit the big time, and…” He says, “Dad, I’m not necessarily looking for that. I just want to make enough money in doing this thing I love to do.” I mean, what more could I say about that? So I said, “Go for it. I hope you can cover your car insurance, but otherwise it’s…”</p> <p>[<em>laughter</em>]</p> <p>And I think that the world needs more of that, perhaps.</p> <p><b>Ms. Pope:</b>And we hear kids who say, “I don’t have a passion. I’m eight years old; what’s my passion? I’m 12 years old…”</p> <p>[<em>laughter</em>]</p> <p>And “I gotta write it on my college application, what my passion is.” And you just say to them, “It will come.” And it comes from being open and curious and taking risks and meeting others.</p> <p><b>Ms. Tippett:</b>Stepping into uncomfortable places where you may fail.</p> <p><b>Ms. Pope:</b>Right, but I don’t want people to get hung up on this thing called a “calling” and that you need it when you’re eight, because you run the risk — whatever you then say is “it,” everybody wants “it.” It will come. It will come.</p> <p><b>Ms. Tippett:</b>So if I ask each of you, not “What do you do,” but what is — how do you understand your vocation, or your vocations, at this moment in time, how would you start to answer that question?</p> <p><b>Ms. Pope:</b>This has always been with me — actually, from my grandfather’s story — which is, I’m Jewish, and there’s a notion called tikkun olam, which means “to repair the world.” And the rule is that you don’t have to fix it, and you don’t have to do it alone, but you gotta try. And that’s how I’ve seen every part of my life, is doing something to try and make the world a better place. And this was the thing that happened to catch me, and I fell into it when I wrote the book. I didn’t know the book was going to start me down this path to have this nonprofit and do all this stuff. But it is fulfilling to help people and feel like I’m part of repairing the world.</p> <p><b>Dr. Verghese:</b>I’m always having to pinch myself that I’m really at Stanford; I’m actually sitting here, talking with you, and people wanting to listen to us — to me, anyway. I know they want to listen to you. I’ve gotten so many emails about …</p> <p>[<em>laughter</em>]</p> <p>And I also feel like, as a writer, I have the great luxury of having the most beautiful day job in the world. And so, no matter what happens to me, I love seeing patients; it’s truly a calling, and I can do that anywhere in the world, and it doesn’t really matter how much I get paid, as long as I can feed myself and my children, who are now fine. So, in that sense, I think my son was right: finding this thing that will both be something you love and that will pay your bills, that is really the calling.</p> <p><b>Ms. Tippett:</b>Or, as he’s doing it, you find the thing you love, and you find the thing that pays your bills, and … Abraham, there’s a poem by e. e. cummings that you quoted. Do you know what I’m talking about? The heart poem?</p> <p><b>Dr. Verghese:</b>“I carry your heart.” I do, indeed.</p> <p><b>Ms. Tippett:</b>I wondered, would you talk about why you care about this so much? I feel like it is related to what we’ve been talking about, even the way we always use the language of heart as a metaphor for all this other stuff that isn’t measurable — in our bodies we’ve known, and now, actually, science is showing us this interactivity. I don’t know. Do you think this fits what we’ve been talking about?</p> <p><b>Dr. Verghese:</b>I think it does. I’ve always loved that poem. For those of you who don’t know it, it’s “i carry your heart” —</p> <p><b>Ms. Tippett:</b>I have it. I was going to ask you to read it. Would you talk about what you love about it?</p> <p><b>Dr. Verghese:</b>I can’t recite it, if that’s what you were gonna say.</p> <p><b>Ms. Tippett:</b>Can you?</p> <p><b>Dr. Verghese:</b>I can read it.</p> <p><b>Ms. Tippett:</b>You can recite it, too.</p> <p><b>Dr. Verghese:</b>I don’t want to stumble, reciting it.</p> <p>[<em>laughter</em>]</p> <p><b>Ms. Tippett:</b>I printed it out for you.</p> <p><b>Dr. Verghese:</b>“i carry your heart with me(i carry it in / my heart)”</p> <p>[<em>tears up</em>]</p> <p>Can you read it?</p> <p>[<em>laughter</em>]</p> <p><b>Ms. Pope:</b>You’re going to make me cry.</p> <p>“i carry your heart with me(i carry it in / my heart)i am never without it(anywhere / i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done / by only me is your doing,my darling) / i fear / no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want / no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true) / and it’s you are / whatever a moon has always meant / and whatever a sun will always sing is you // here is the deepest secret nobody knows / (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud / and the sky of / the sky of a tree called life;which grows / higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) / and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart / i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)”</p> <p><b>Dr. Verghese:</b>Lovely; lovely. I’ve always loved this poem, and I was asked to address, by my boss here at Stanford, who’s a cardiologist — couldn’t say no — to speak at this big congress of cardiology in San Diego Convention Hall. Ten thousand cardiologists floating around, and I was going to give the opening keynote. I didn’t have slides; I didn’t have molecules; I didn’t have catheters. And I decided that I was going to make this my theme because they were going to spend five days talking about the heart and not necessarily acknowledging this metaphorical heart. And I think there was pin-drop silence because everybody was waiting to see how quickly I was going to bomb with this particular theme. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p>But I think it struck a chord. It struck a chord. The person who comes to see you, as William Carlos Williams said so many years ago, they are not a liver or a heart or a kidney. They are one guy or gal with a unique problem. And his wonderful quote was that the physician on the frontline must fall back on his or her own sense of self. That is your instrument. Your instrument is not the EKG or the stethoscope; it’s your sense of self, combined with all the scientific knowledge and the human understanding that you bring.</p> <p>And I just love that poem, and my boss — I don’t think he’ll mind my telling this, because I published this — he has twin daughters, and they have both tattooed the words “i carry your heart” over their sixth rib on either side so that — it doesn’t matter that it’s the sixth rib, but it is the sixth rib.</p> <p>[<em>laughter</em>]</p> <p>And I was very touched by that. So they’re separated now; they live in different cities, but “i carry your heart.”</p> <p><b>Ms. Tippett:</b>Someplace, you were talking about — let me find this in my notes — you were talking about presence — thinking about presence. And you said, “Disease is easier to recognize than the individual with the disease,” which is related to what you just said. And it feels to me like that can be carried over to all of our encounters with each other in all of our spaces, especially in a moment like this, and I think that’s very fitting for being convened here by the Haas Center for Public Service. So what we’ve circled around to here is our presence to ourselves and how inextricable that is — to be meaningful, to be absolutely connected to our presence to others. And that will change us, and that will shape the path.</p> <p>So, thank you all for coming. Thank you so much, the two of you, for your wisdom. Have a good evening.</p> <p>[<em>applause</em>]</p> <p>[<em>music: “Moon on the land” by Dirty Three</em>]</p> <p><b>Ms. Tippett:</b>Abraham Verghese is a professor of medicine, vice chair of the department of medicine, and Linda R. Meier and Joan F. Lane Provostial Professor at Stanford University. His books include <em>My Own Country</em>, <em>The Tennis Partner</em>, and the novel <em>Cutting for Stone</em>. He received the National Humanities Medal from President Obama in 2016.<br /> Denise Pope is a senior lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Education and co-founder of the non-profit organization, Challenge Success. She’s the author of <em>Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed-Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students</em>.<br /> Special thanks this week to Stanford’s Haas Center for Public Service, where I was the 2019 Mimi and Peter E. Haas Distinguished Visitor. A grateful shout-out especially to Joann Wong, Vanessa Ochavillo, and Tom Schnaubelt.</p> <p><b>Staff:</b>The On Being Project is Chris Heagle, Lily Percy, Maia Tarrell, Marie Sambilay, Erinn Farrell, Laurén Dørdal, Tony Liu, Bethany Iverson, Erin Colasacco, Kristin Lin, Profit Idowu, Eddie Gonzalez, Lilian Vo, Lucas Johnson, Damon Lee, Suzette Burley, Katie Gordon, Zack Rose, and Serri Graslie.</p> <p><b>Ms. Tippett:</b>The On Being Project is located on Dakota Land. Our lovely theme music is provided and composed by Zoë Keating. And the last voice that you hear singing at the end of our show is Cameron Kinghorn.</p> <p><em>On Being</em> is an independent production of The On Being Project. It is distributed to public radio stations by PRX. I created this show at American Public Media.</p> <p>Our funding partners include:</p> <p>The John Templeton Foundation. Harnessing the power of the sciences to explore the deepest and most perplexing questions facing human kind. Learn about cutting-edge research on the science of generosity, gratitude, and purpose at <a href="https://templeton.org/discoveries">>templeton.org/discoveries</a>.</p> <p>The Fetzer Institute, helping to build the spiritual foundation for a loving world. Find them at <a href="http://fetzer.org/">fetzer.org</a>.</p> <p>Kalliopeia Foundation, working to create a future where universal spiritual values form the foundation of how we care for our common home.</p> <p>Humanity United, advancing human dignity at home and around the world. 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