“Comfort is one of the biggest enemies of progress.”–Ayomide Ojebuoboh1
Ayomide Ojebuoboh’s opinion article in Medpage Today, “Researchers Are Focused on the Wrong Things,” struck a chord to me, not only as researcher/educator, but also as a community leader (in the sense that we are all leaders in our communities and circles of influence). Yes, the focus of the article was on medical research, but the theme should affect us all. We are nearly all presently entrenched in our comfort zones. COVID-19 has revealed this quite effectively over the past eighteen months. (I hate repeatedly using the COVID-19 example, and long for the day when it is passé; but, presently, it is low-hanging fruit.) Ojebuoboh writes that “we should be engaging communities, not just studying them.” We, here, is medical researchers, but we should all be more engaged with our communities. Medical and academic researchers often fall into a trap of “publish or perish.” As such, we learn more and more about less and less until we know everything about absolutely nothing. “Science”, as has been revealed over the last year and a half, has become a process of proving ourselves right rather than a process of learning what we don’t know.
When I hear the layperson and/or the politician claim they “follow the science,” my stomach knots, because I know it is bullsh**. It simply means that believe the science that affirms their beliefs. It is also a statement that is intended to put down the opposing view as being uneducated or ill-informed. If one truly “follows the science,” one questions everything—one reaches beyond their comfort zone and confidence level to explore the unknown and to expose their ignorance. Science literally cannot be “followed” because it is the edge of uncertainty. It is exploring the unknown and testing hypothesis. Science is a process. It is not a physical thing that can lead. Scientists may lead (and sometimes down a wrong path or a dead-end path, but that is science), but their results do not. Science is data that informs decisions. Wisdom requires knowledge (i.e., data or science) coupled with the willingness to challenge of presumptions.
When Ayomide Ojebuoboh states that “comfort is one of the biggest enemies of progress,” she is speaking to more than just her colleagues in medicine. She is speaking to me. She is speaking to all of us.
Many have entrenched themselves in political ideologies, theologies, and their limited worldviews. As such, they (we) have limited their (our) progress. Wisdom seeks knowledge (i.e., information or data) that challenges one’s worldview. Wisdom engages with the “opposition” and seeks, as Stephen Covey wrote in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, to “first understand, then to be understood.” We need to become comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Our progress as a society and as human beings has been stifled by our unwillingness to be uncomfortable—by our unwillingness to engage in discussion (rather than soundbites on social media). We demand to be heard, but refuse to listen. We allow ourselves to be limited by our bias. We often hear the phrase: “unconscious bias.” I believe, however, that we suffer more from our conscious bias—by our unwillingness to allow our views to be challenged. I find “unconscious bias” to be a phrased used by those who are more demanding that you listen to their views than are willing listen to your views. Suffice it to say that we all have bias (conscious or unconscious) and it limits our capacity to grow—to progress. Thus, we have to willfully challenge our biases and to allow them to be challenged by others in respectful discourse. Otherwise, we are doomed as a society.
Be your best today; be better tomorrow.
Carpe momento!
1https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/94349?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2021-09-04&eun=g1854320d0r&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Headlines%20Top%20Cat%20HeC%20%202021-09-04&utm_term=NL_Daily_DHE_dual-gmail-definition