Telling Our Stories: My Story 3 - Cooperation

My Story 4 - Cooperation

Our Family loves to play Skip-bo, from my 95-year-old father, down to our children and their cousins. We may play anywhere from 1 to 3 rounds a session. You can't really play this game without someone "winning" or "losing." However, we don't go to the extent of counting the value of cards and adding up scores that way, which can add another layer of competitiveness to the game. We just settle for whoever gets rid of their stack of cards first. Then the winner, especially if it is my wife, invariably makes remarks about how it is just luck, referring to which cards you were dealt and what the opportunities where that presented themselves as the game made it  s rounds.

When I was brought up, for reasons that had to do with whatever they had inherited from their backgrounds, our parents never pushed or taught us to be competitive. There was a certain level of understanding that we should do our best, but this referred to all of life and more to academics then things like athletics or hobbies, which can also become opportunities for competition.

Somehow, around the time my wife and I began to raise our family, there was a movement in society toward non-competitive games. We learned of a small company in Ontario that marketed such games and acquired several of them. One involved players working together to build a tower with blocks. Another involved working together to climb a mountain, figuratively of course, on a strip of felt. But one that was perhaps the most fun and the most challenging was a game that had been developed to parallel the ever popular and competitive Monopoly. However, instead of acquiring properties and amassing large sums of money through rents etc., this game, including the strategies and what happened with the cards that were stacked in the center, focused on the benefits of cooperation. Obviously, in a sense, there were still some competition as, if I recall correctly, the more you cooperated, the more you benefited, a.k.a. won.

I am not athletic, and no one in my family of origin ever really pursued or excelled at any sport. However, I do recall admiring my father's ability in softball when I was a child. When it came to my ability, I probably peaked at soccer when I was in junior high. Part of that was because I was still smaller at that age then some of the older players with whom we played together in our village's schoolyard. I played some softball with my fellow nursing orderlies when I was working at University Hospital in Saskatoon. I even proudly wore our green windbreaker, with tour team name Ozarks, on it, referring to the fact that the university is rather high on a hill on the east side of the South Saskatchewan River there. 

I also became fairly good at volleyball. Even though I might not have been the quickest or best as a frontline player, I was often able to deliver a series of serves that helped our team rack up points. This was all learned on an outdoor volleyball court, As we had no gymnasium in our small school, or any level patches of pavement or concrete on which to play, I never did learn to play basketball, as it was not until after Grade 10 that we moved to the city. Somehow, we never played football there, so I never learn to play that either. Living on the lake, we learned to skate and enjoyed that and the number of games that opened up, including, of course, as a Canadian, hockey. It was all just at the fun level though. Later in life, when I was no longer doing much skating and rollerblades came into existence, I tried my hand at that for a while, skating around the neighborhood. That was a good workout.

In medical school, I played a little soccer again on our class team. However, at the same time, I started into curling and that was my sport for a number of years. Even there, I never developed enough skill to really warrant moving beyond the lead position. Another game that we learn to play when I was in junior high was table tennis. Somehow, for a physical break, both for herself and me, my daughter and I got into paying quite a few rounds of that when she was in high school.

We tended to develop interests in non-competitive sports. When we were children, living on Lake Winnipeg, we love to row our large 20-foot oak and cedar yawl on the lake. Later, I learned to canoe and enjoyed that for a number of years. At various periods in my adult life I tried jogging, but it never lasted more than six weeks. I just never got into it. Surprisingly, even though we lived on a lake, I never developed much skill in swimming. After I learned to cycle, I enjoyed that for a number of years and would even ride my bike to medical school or to my residency postings and work. Lately, I mostly just walk, something we did from the time we started school.

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Another aspect of competition that can develop is what some would refer to as ‘the pursuit of excellence.’ As I mentioned above, I did learn that one should try to do one’s best in life. There was a sense that this was even related to our faith and that God expected this of us. After all, Jesus gave up everything and poured his whole life into his ministry, eventually pouring it out for us on the cross.

I tried to do my best in my schoolwork, and was certainly always at the upper level of my class. One of my main interests as a child, and still, is art and I try to do well at that. Likewise, with singing and making music. Ultimately, I have tried to be a good Bible student and teacher.

When I became a physician, even already in training, one became aware of the competitiveness in this field. In training it took the form of those, particularly our seniors, who were able to remember and quote the latest in medical knowledge, making those of us who did not do so definitely feel somewhat inferior and lacking. However, as time went on and I saw some of these individuals become what the profession would consider successful and there careers, I saw that it was often at the expense of marriage and family life, something I did not want to pursue. I guess my experience in family life growing up within our own family of origin and extended family, and also being quite conscious of the families around us, made me see family as more important then that kind of success. 

What I was really seeing of course was the importance of relationships and community. This understanding was deepened and developed further in the years that I spent within the community that was Canadian Mennonite Bible College at that time. I began to learn about balance in life and see that as more important for one's overall health and that of one's family.

When I became a physician and began to raise a family of our own, together with my wife, I was determined not to let work take precedence over family. I worked hard, but I perhaps never studied medicine at hard in my off-work hours as some of my contemporaries would have. That did not help me become what the profession would have considered an excellent physician, at least when it came to academics, research and publication. To this day, I don't know how some of my colleagues did it. Perhaps they just were more intelligent and capable than me.

Indeed, as I have sometimes looked back at my life, I have wondered if I have sometimes overdone the concern for balance. Perhaps I should have poured myself into my career more and become a better and more capable physician, at least medically. On the other hand, I believe I have been a good physician in terms of being an individual, a person, who worked hard at relating to and communicating with the patient and/or their family who were in front of me, giving them my undivided attention at the time. I may not have learned and perfected the latest skills and strategies in terms of therapy as a psychiatrist. However, I believe that who I was as a person trying to relate to them, giving them unconditional support and thus maintaining hope, often did as much therapeutically as following the latest method of any particular school of therapy would have.