We live in a world where patience is a diminishing commodity.
We want each day to wrap up like an episode of a TV show.
We want to end all arguments by having the perfectly worded Facebook post.
We want to work out the solutions to our problems, meet our soul-mate, elect the perfect candidate, and live the rest of our lives happy and contented.

However, every story has many pages, every timeline has many data points and every life is made up of many days, many decisions.

Do we encourage people who visit us each day, each week or just occasionally, to win their small battles?
Do we embrace the efforts of the person who elects to lose weight and modulate his or her cardiovascular risk factors?
Do we support that decision, or do we just “make a sale”?

I get annoyed at practitioners who ignore the gains made by a committed and empowered person, and demand that a prescribed medication be taken, as of now!
That practitioner only views what’s in front of them, and ignores everything else.

Our job is to recognize that every person who comes to us has a narrative.
Our professional expectation is to enter that narrative and to direct it in the best possible way.

It’s not our narrative – it’s theirs!
We can have a huge impact on people if we listen, understand what we are seeing, and help them to write today’s narrative in a better way.

We will do our best when we appreciate the fact that we are simply a point in the timeline.