You are an instrument of God. Don't leave the instrument sitting in its case, my son. Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. Why settle for 'Three Blind Mice' when you can can play the 'Gloria'? No, not Bach's 'Gloria.' Yours! Your 'Gloria' lives within you. The greatest sin is not finding it, ignoring what God made possible in you.
Interpretation
This quote encourages individuals to recognize and utilize their inherent talents and potential given by God.
Abraham Verghese emphasizes the importance of discovering and embracing one's unique abilities, portraying each person as an instrument meant to contribute to the world. He suggests that choosing to ignore or underutilize these gifts is the true failure, as it prevents one from expressing their own unique creativity and purpose, which he metaphorically calls 'Gloria'.
In practice
In a motivational speech about self-discovery and harnessing one's abilities.
The flip side of suicide is that it leaves a lingering question in the minds of the people who survived. It's like a cancer that's metastasized. The suicide is the cancer and the metastasis is all these people saying, Why? Why? Why?
We're losing a ritual. We're losing a ritual that I believe is transformative, transcendent, and is at the heart of the patient-physician relationship.
I still find the best way to understand a hospitalized patient whose care I am taking over is not by staring at the computer screen but by going to see the patient; it's only at the bedside that I can figure out what is important.
It was all I had, all I've ever had, the only currency, the only proof that I was alive. Memory.
My VIP patients often regret so many things on their deathbeds. They regret the bitterness they'll leave in people's hearts. They realize the no money, no church service, no eulogy, no funeral procession no matter how elaborate, can remove the legacy of a mean spirit.
Students undergo a conversion in the third year of medical school - not pre-clinical to clinical, but pre-cynical to cynical.
These are the days of miracle and wonder.
The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy.
With realization of one's own potential and self-confidence in one's ability, one can build a better world.
In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened…
Everyone can access the parts of themselves that are great. I'm just a girl from New York City who decided to do this, after all. Rule the world! What's life worth living if you don't rule it?
I believe that having something to hope for - even if it's just a better tomorrow- is the most powerful drug on this planet.
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