Dog eats dogs, then cares for other dogs

 Growing up, my dad, being the cheesball that he is, would always try to incorporate life lessons into our mundane daily activities. If my entire family managed to make it to the dinner table, he would always say “Now this is what it’s all about.” When I would sweep the floors, he made sure that I got the corners too, because “the little things are just as important as the big picture.” And whenever I was struggling with something, whether it be in the field of academics or athletics, he always made sure I understood that “there will always be someone better than [me], so [I] should just concentrate on doing [my] best.”

LANCE ALWORTH'S FATHER TOLD HIS SON THAT HE WOULD NEVER BE THE BEST AT HIS SPORT. LANCE WENT ON TO BE A PRO FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME RECEIVER.

While this may be true, it didn’t stop me from trying like hell to be the best—the fittest—at whatever I did. Often times, if I realize I can’t be at least one of the best at something—perhaps activities that require traits that “are [not] in [my] genes and cannot be changed”[1]—I will give up completely. 

BASEBALL WAS SOMETHING I WAS TERRIBLE AT. AFTER ONE RUN IN AN ENTIRE SEASON, I DECIDED THIS WOULD BE THE LAST BASEBALL PICTURE I EVER TOOK. 

 On the opposite end of the spectrum, if I find something I am good at, I tend to be rather ruthless in my execution, basically throwing ethics out the window.

            However, this leads me to a very interesting crossroad concerning my leadership vision. My situation is very much like Dana’s. The career path of a doctor is (ironically) one that is permeated with a dog-eat-dog mentality, for being a good surgeon requires a great sense of kindness and a will to help. Getting into med school is one of the most competitive, challenging processes one can go through. It’s not enough to just have good grades, it’s not enough to have the most volunteer hours, it’s not enough to have the highest MCAT score—they want you to do everything and do it very, very well. It is as if these schools, on their search for medical Arians, are throwing us all into a cage, locking the door, turning up the heat, and forcing us to duke it out, royal rumble style. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErK4y7GmxL8

I FELT THIS WAS A GOOD METAPHOR FOR MEDICAL SCHOOL APPLICANTS. I CAN HOPE TO BE AS SUCCESSFUL AS GOLDBERG.

It is a situation where “the strongest, the most self-assertive, tend to tread down the weaker,”[2] because they have to.

            Yet, I believe that once I achieve my goal of becoming a doctor, the competitive nature and the urge to dominate one’s fellow man, must stop. It is a profession where for twelve years of training the switch must be turned to the harsh survival mode of nature and then suddenly switch to nurture. 

 IT WILL BE HARD TO SWITCH MY WAY OF THINKING AS A MEDICAL STUDENT TO THAT OF AN ACTUAL DOCTOR. 

work, in the grand scheme of life will rely upon my compassion for people, my ability to see them as more than just “temporary carriers”[3] of genes, and my desire as a leader to encourage the “maintenance of life, the preservation of [our] species, and its further evolution.”[4] Also, if my goal to become a leader is a success, I hope to “give those who desire to rise the aids by which they may rise”[5]— those whose shoes I am currently in—for they will one day hold the key to continuing our health and our growth as a species. In this way, perhaps the meaning of Darwin’s adage will come to be “not so much survival of the fittest, as to the fitting of as many possible to survive.”[6]

---

[1] Steven Pinker, “How the Mind Works”, 472, from: Philip Appleman, Darwin (New York: Norton and Company, 2001).

[2] T.H. Huxley, “Evolution of Ethics”, 502, from: Philip Appleman, Darwin (New York: Norton and Company, 2001).

[3] Edward Wilson, “Sociobiology: The New Synthesis”, 409, from: Philip Appleman, Darwin (New York: Norton and Company, 2001).

[4] Peter Kropotkin, “Mutual Aid”, 399, from: Philip Appleman, Darwin (New York: Norton and Company, 2001).

[5] Andrew Carnegie, “The Gospel of Wealth”, 397, from: Philip Appleman, Darwin (New York: Norton and Company, 2001).

[6] T.H. Huxley, “Evolution of Ethics”, 502, from: Philip Appleman, Darwin (New York: Norton and Company, 2001). 

PHOTOS: 

[1] Lance Alworth, http://www.playitusa.com/nflhistory/images/399.jpg

[2] Me, my own picture

[3] Nature vs. Nurture, http://www.adoptionblogs.com/media/FosterAdoption/nature_nurture.jpg