The Comfort of Ignorance
Much of my life has been filled with blissful ignorance about the world. Growing up, I was consumed by the little problems of my life and never thought twice about the hardships of others. However, as a self-absorbed fourteen year-old, I found that although ignorance is comfortable, it blocks the true reality of what the world is.
It was a crisp, clear, and unusually warm winter day when I had to shadow my mom in the ER. I wasn’t interested in going into to work with her, but I hesitantly agreed to do so as to avoid any further arguing between us. On our way to the hospital my mother rambled off all of the precautions I would need to know, and I, instead of listening, was silently thinking over how horrible of …show more content…
I slowly got out of the car, making extra effort to display how annoyed I was by dragging my tennis shoes against the pavement. Maybe she will decide that taking me with her is not a good idea. When we approached the doors, they swung open to reveal an overly lighted waiting room that nearly burned my eyes from the amount of white used on the walls, chairs, and basically everything. As my eyes recovered from the exposure to the bright room, I followed my mom through a few “staff only” doors in order to reach the emergency room.
The emergency room was filled with noticeably stressed out nurses and doctors pacing back and forth between their patient’s rooms. As my mom logged in with her badge to start her day, I observed the chaotic scene around me. Our first patient of the day was an old man in his seventies. As my mother strode into the patient’s room with me on her heels, I felt relieved to leave the chaos of the emergency room for a …show more content…
I instantly felt stupid about how little my problems were in relation to the patient I saw. How could I have complained about burning my tongue on coffee when there were people who could not differentiate reality from fantasy? How many times have I ignored the pain of other people to tolerate my own comfort? Out of this experience, I developed a new passion that did not derive from my own wants, needs, and first-world problems. No longer did looking past others problems become a part of my personality. After all, ignorance is comfortable, but it is also dismissive to the
Much of my life has been filled with blissful ignorance about the world. Growing up, I was consumed by the little problems of my life and never thought twice about the hardships of others. However, as a self-absorbed fourteen year-old, I found that although ignorance is comfortable, it blocks the true reality of what the world is.
It was a crisp, clear, and unusually warm winter day when I had to shadow my mom in the ER. I wasn’t interested in going into to work with her, but I hesitantly agreed to do so as to avoid any further arguing between us. On our way to the hospital my mother rambled off all of the precautions I would need to know, and I, instead of listening, was silently thinking over how horrible of …show more content…
I slowly got out of the car, making extra effort to display how annoyed I was by dragging my tennis shoes against the pavement. Maybe she will decide that taking me with her is not a good idea. When we approached the doors, they swung open to reveal an overly lighted waiting room that nearly burned my eyes from the amount of white used on the walls, chairs, and basically everything. As my eyes recovered from the exposure to the bright room, I followed my mom through a few “staff only” doors in order to reach the emergency room.
The emergency room was filled with noticeably stressed out nurses and doctors pacing back and forth between their patient’s rooms. As my mom logged in with her badge to start her day, I observed the chaotic scene around me. Our first patient of the day was an old man in his seventies. As my mother strode into the patient’s room with me on her heels, I felt relieved to leave the chaos of the emergency room for a …show more content…
I instantly felt stupid about how little my problems were in relation to the patient I saw. How could I have complained about burning my tongue on coffee when there were people who could not differentiate reality from fantasy? How many times have I ignored the pain of other people to tolerate my own comfort? Out of this experience, I developed a new passion that did not derive from my own wants, needs, and first-world problems. No longer did looking past others problems become a part of my personality. After all, ignorance is comfortable, but it is also dismissive to the