Smrithi Ramachandran is a Junior from Houston, Texas. She is a
Human Health major and Dance and Movement Studies minor, pursuing the pre-med track.
Throughout my life, I have been incredibly blessed to meet
people that have taught me invaluable lessons about selflessness. My parents
and sister, friends, doctors, and mentors have helped me center my life goals
around serving others. While I have already met so many influential people,
those who have impacted me most tend to appear in fleeting experiences and
conversations. I have met strangers on beaches, at Child Protective Services,
in ambulances and even in delivery rooms who taught me the importance of kindness
and a duty to service all through one-time experiences. This essay is a
compilation of stories centered around those who have impacted me the most and
taught me what it means to live with the mission of serving others.
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Growing up, I attended Sunday School, where I learned about
my culture and religion. Each year, lessons were designed based off age groups;
younger children learned about the stories from our heritage, and older age
groups took these stories and lessons for real world application. The year I
was most fond of centered its lesson plans around giving back to the community.
We did this in the form of “sandwich sevas”, which were monthly get-togethers to
make lunches to later deliver to downtown shelters, Child Protective Services
volunteer trips, and many other similar events. A motto that strung our actions
and lessons together was, “Love All, Serve All.” This is something I quickly started
to use in my own vocabulary, but there always seemed to exist a gap between my
words and real understanding of the motto.
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Two summers ago, I trained to become a certified Emergency
Medical Technician at home and had the opportunity to shadow an OBGYN in my
clinical rotations. I have told so many people about this specific experience,
because it is something that, years later, I still pull lessons from. I
remember anxiously starting my day in the unit, waiting to help with taking
vitals of the soon-to-be and postpartum mothers. Halfway in my rotation,
another doctor came in for her shift, and she honestly changed my entire
outlook on what it means to be a medical practitioner. This doctor let me
observe multiple deliveries, and sometime right before the second one, she was paged
to go to the labor and delivery room. She immediately told me to get up and
follow her, and we quickly walked to the other side of the hall. Nerves and
anxiety circulated my insides, as I had no idea what would come. Suddenly, she
stopped right outside of the door and turned to face me. She then said, “This
is what my attending told me, and I want to tell this to you. Take a deep
breath. Even if this is the most stressful delivery of your life, you take a
deep breath right before entering the room, because your patient needs you to
be calm. Her entire world is in your hands, and you are there for her and with
her.” She then marched right into the room, with a big smile and reassuring
presence.
I remember that advice word-to-word, because it was revolutionary. The fact that someone else can become completely vulnerable and entrust their life in your own fingertips is such a beautiful and delicate responsibility. That day, that doctor devoted her entire duty to serving her patient. Beyond that, she devoted her routine, pre-delivery breath to me, to teach me how important it is to love all.
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A few weeks ago, we lost Sandy, the fifth and fluffiest
member of our family. For those who have not experienced having a long-term
pet, this experience our family had was equated with losing a source of
comfort. Our dog was around for 16 years – 16 years of love, companionship, and
experiences. On New Year’s Day this year, we took Sandy to the local animal
hospital at around 1 in the morning. She was increasingly lethargic, was wobbling
around due to a lack of strength, and was sinking her chin down on her blue
sleeping bag, which she had never done before. I carried in my arms to the
hospital, where a nurse and veterinarian were immediately available. I felt
guilty that the doctor would be caring for our pet as the start of her new
year, because new years and new beginnings should ideally be spent with those
you love. That’s when the importance of her job really hit me. We easily take
for granted how available resources are around us. If we’re ill, we have the
privilege of scheduling a healthcare appointment. If we have an emergency, we
have the means to seek emergency care, which most people in the world do not
have. The people that constitute these readily available resources are those
who dedicate their work to others. Vets, specifically, work so hard to
understand and heal both humans and animals, which is something I could feel
from our recent experience with Sandy. When I think about the last few days she
was around, I have burning images of my parents, sister and I centering our
conversations and love around our dog. I think about how we all spoke to her
and stayed with her until the very end. I also think about how my parents now
place fresh flowers on her blue sleeping bag, thanking her existence and the
existence of the staff who tenderly cared for all of us until the end. This
pushed me to start embodying the mindset of loving all and serving all.
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A few nights ago, I was speaking to a good friend about life
and what it means to find balance in our work and interpersonal relationships.
Her eloquent ramble made me really stop to think about my own priorities, why
they exist, and how they affect other people. We were essentially talking about
how to prioritize work and studies with family and personal stability. It
almost seemed like an endless circle of logic, where we deciphered that work is
priority until we are successful, where then family and friends can become
priority. But that wouldn’t be able to last long because patients and the
healthcare system would have to become priority, which would then put personal
health and stability on the backburner, and so on. The conclusion was more a
final question: can we really ever find that perfect balance for ourselves –
does it even exist? As I increasingly got into my head about my path and future
and how I would entertain any of the above, I realized I was abnormally calm
about it all. Despite the endless preoccupations with how to essentially be the
most well-rounded person who can satisfy social, personal, and career spheres,
grounding myself to one central purpose is what will accompany me through it
all. I think that this new year has solidified the pervasive motto that has
interwoven itself in my life. Within each of these little stories, I have
managed to string together a central theme; each experience and/or person mentioned
above focuses on a purpose to help others. In the end, holding one’s self to a
core principle is what allows for personal stability. For me, I hope to act
with intention. Even on the days where I wake up lacking motivation, I hope
that I can be energized with the opportunity that I can always love all and
serve all.