Since I was a child, I have despised the words “May you live long.”
I felt like it was a curse.
My younger brother, who knows my thoughts, used to joke, “Allah kre tumhari itni lambi umar ho, tum marne ko tarso!” (May Allah bless you with such a long life that you will pray for your death.)
He still wishes the same for me. (He wants me to suffer.)
I used to say that I didn’t want to go through this suffering for more than 30 to 40 years. I wished it didn’t matter how many years I lived, as long as those years were happy.
My life was difficult, and I had a fantasy that death could be beautiful. It would simply transport me to a faraway place where there is no suffering, pain, hardship, or discomfort.
I used to believe that dying at a young age meant you didn’t have enough time or opportunities to do bad things or commit more sins in life than those who lived longer. Dying at a young age would increase your chances of going to heaven.
For me, heaven is a stretch of land with waterfalls and blue clouds, gardens abounding with flowers and trees. A location where you can go fishing, running, stargazing, walking, horseback riding, or simply lie under the open sky whenever you want.
A place where we will never age. A place where I can always be a child.
We would get everything we wished for. Where I could eat and shop as much as I wanted without constantly checking my account balance. A place where I’d have nothing to do or think about.
A place without any worries at all. Heaven, in my mind, is a place free of suffering, pain, and misery. We would be as light as a cloud.
There will be no illness, headaches, or tears. There will be no malice, hatred, or ill will toward anyone there. There will be no worries about the past or future. We will only live in the present moment. We will not have to go to work and count every penny.
There will be no stress about meeting all the milestones on time. Even if we fail to accomplish anything, no one will mock or ridicule us.
We will be surrounded by all our loved ones from past and future generations, including friends, colleagues, classmates, teachers, and family members whom we loved but lost along the way.
We would have everyone on whom we had a crush in a previous life around us, and we would be allowed to roam around holding hands with any one of those, whoever wanted, at any time.
We will reclaim those people whom we loved but who cut all ties with us.
I’d be able to study books all day in my huge library, complete with staircases to access the books at height. I’ll spend my time gardening, swimming, and horseback riding.
A place where I would have enough time and resources to pursue all my hobbies and interests that I had never pursued or had the opportunity to do.
A place where my life will be interesting.
A place where I can have numerous pets. A place where I will keep my horses, rabbits, ducklings, baby goats, peacocks, alpacas, pigeons, baby elephants, sparrows, quails, sheep, fish of every color imaginable, and turtles. I plan to spend my time raising and talking to my animals.
In my dreams, heaven is a place where we can ask God to change the weather whenever we want rain, snow, sunlight, or moonlight. Where we would be able to visit any star or planet we desired.
A location where there will be no internet, phones, mobile devices, laptops, or computers. No fax machines, post offices, or letters. We would teleport to any location and speak with anyone we wanted in person.
Heaven would be free of anxiety, depression, phobias, and fears. There will be no physical or mental illness ever. We would never experience palpitations, panic attacks, tremors, cognitive impairments, or memory problems.
There would be no hospitals or the odor of disinfectant.
People will not need to undergo surgeries or painful procedures. There will be no fear of labor pains. Mothers could have as many babies as they wanted without experiencing pain.
There would be gardens where their beautiful children could laugh, giggle, and play without ever being hurt.
There would be no chance of being separated from our loved ones, and we would not have to care for someone who was ill. We would never attend a funeral.
Having this image of heaven in my mind always made me feel like this prayer was a curse, to wish someone a long life so that he or she would have to endure worldly suffering for a long time.
To live in this constant worry and fatigue of life, worrying about tomorrow, decades of suffering, making ends meet, studying, doing groceries, cooking, washing and ironing clothes, going to work every day, giving birth and raising children, and finally watching your loved ones suffer when they are sick, and seeing people around you die one by one.
But, you know, after learning about the butterfly effect, my perspective on living a long life shifted. According to Wikipedia:
“In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.”
The term is closely associated with the work of mathematician and meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz. He noted that the butterfly effect is derived from the metaphorical example of the details of a tornado (the exact time of formation, the exact path taken) being influenced by minor perturbations such as a distant butterfly flapping its wings several weeks earlier. Lorenz originally used a seagull causing a storm but was persuaded to make it more poetic with the use of a butterfly and tornado by 1972.
He discovered the effect when he observed runs of his weather model with initial condition data that were rounded in a seemingly inconsequential manner. He noted that the weather model would fail to reproduce the results of runs with the unrounded initial condition data. A very small change in initial conditions had created a significantly different outcome.
The concept of the butterfly effect has since been used outside the context of weather science as a broad term for any situation where a small change is supposed to be the cause of larger consequences.
I started to imagine the butterfly effect being applied to what I was doing.
Many others around me can benefit from my small act of kindness, and it might bring unexpected joy to their lives. Perhaps a smile, a positive emotion, or even hope. This idea makes me pause in times of weakness when I feel like my life is meaningless or that I lack the power to change the world.
These thoughts support me during my weak moments. I feel good when I think about the people who look to me for help (whether it’s through my physical presence or financial or emotional support). When I think about my parents, siblings, friends, patients, relatives, and coworkers, I feel important to everyone.
I used to hear this phrase frequently: “Everyone is replaceable.” It may be true, but the replacement will not be exactly like me.
It can never be me.
There are times in our lives when we feel stuck and unfulfilled. We forget that what we do improves other people’s lives in some way. We often view our lives as a never-ending cycle of earning, eating, sleeping, and repeating. The thought of a burdensome and monotonous life bores us. We lose interest in our lives.
However, as life evolves, so do individuals. We won’t be like this forever. If we don’t enjoy everything we want to do on some days, it doesn’t mean we won’t on others.
When I consider that, while I may feel as if my life is nothing but worries and responsibilities, it may be important to many people around me. Even more than I can imagine. Our lives are interconnected in thousands of intricate ways that the human mind cannot comprehend.
My father used to tell me as a child that every grain of wheat we ate was predestined to come to us.
For example, if an apple is meant to be yours, someone will plant the seed in a faraway land; you never know where, when, or who will care for that seedling. Someone would water the plant every day, and someone would fertilize it. Then there will be people who pluck the fruits. Someone would pack them in boxes. Someone would drive that truck, taking those apples to another country or city. We have no idea about all of those people.
Even if the apples were grown in another country, they would have passed through hundreds of hands before reaching us. All of these people’s lives are intertwined simply because that apple is destined to be ours.
As I began to observe the ordinary events in my life through this lens, I began to notice things that I had previously dismissed as ordinary or routine.
We sometimes make a difference in people’s lives without even realizing it.
I am important to that cab driver who feels good after getting a long ride because of me, the tea seller on the roadside who knows I would like a cup of tea from him, the fries seller, and the person who sells corn at my hospital gate; they all know that my day is incomplete unless I get something from them.
There is a juice stall near my hospital’s library, and the stall owner is always smiling while looking at me because he knows I will come to him for a glass of juice even if I don’t want it, because I won’t disappoint him once I notice him smiling with that inviting smile.
The security guard, whom I greet every day, always notices when I’m on leave and can’t see me for a few days. He always inquires about my well-being the next day.
I think about all my friends who look forward to receiving my gift on their birthday. I know I’m important to the bookshop owner, whose face lights up when he sees me. He is pleased to see me because he knows I will ask for his opinion on the most popular books of the week and will not return without purchasing books from him.
I think about the pets who are eager to eat from my hands. My bunnies, birds, and fish all respond to my voice. I know they wait all day for me to come close and sniff or lick me so I can pat their heads, hug or kiss them, feed them, clean their cages, fill their water pitchers, talk to them, and offer them various foods.
I know they are familiar with my presence, and I believe no one can love them like I do.
Perhaps someone will look after them, but he or she will not kiss or speak to them in the same way I do.
Perhaps someone would.
However, that person will not be me.
Similarly, their lives matter to me because they brighten and beautify my days.
There are many people in this world who help deserving families, orphans, widows, and students. Their lives are valuable in that many people rely on them for financial support.
Many people benefit from their existence, although they don’t know them personally, still, they are making a difference and playing their part in making our world a better place to live.
Then there are those who do not have families, pets, or anyone around them, as well as those who have a mental illness, are differently abled, or have been through a traumatic event that has taken away their will to live. Sometimes they believe that they can no longer do anything for themselves or the world.
This does not imply that their lives are any less valuable than anyone else’s or that they should end their lives.
If they ended their lives out of disappointment or desperation to get rid of their pain, they would deprive the world of all those future opportunities in which they will change the world.
They would marry or adopt someone beautiful, changing their own and others’ lives in the process.
They will become parents, teachers, janitors, gardeners, cleaners, cashiers, errand boys, dependable secretaries, security guards, scientists, painters, artists, singers, and a thousand other types of people who will make a difference in the lives of thousands.
It’s just that they don’t know yet.
How they will make a difference. One day.
Only if they take a chance on themselves.
The person who makes our coffee every day is important. It may be a job for him or her, but his or her work is definitely making a difference in our day.
“They say in our lives we’ll meet something like eighty thousand people. Most of them just in passing, sitting beside them on a bus, buying a latte from them, overtaking them too fast on the motorway. Others will become friends, lovers, family. Some will stay in our lives forever, and some will be swept away by the flow of life. But we touch all of these people in some way, tiny or huge, making more of a difference than any of us can imagine.”
—Eva Woods, The Inbetween Days
Our lives are not simply ours. They belong to a lot of people around us.
During my childhood, I learned that suicide is one of the most despised acts in many religions. I’ve always wondered what was so bad about ending a painful life. Why is it so discouraged that it will lead to hellfire?
But, over time, I learned some of the reasons.
The first reason is a loss of faith in the Almighty or divine authority, believing that He is incapable of changing our circumstances. It means abandoning your faith in God. It’s like saying, “No, I don’t trust you. You can never do anything good for me.” It’s one way of challenging God.
The second is a lack of belief in ourselves, our willpower, and our determination to change our lives. We can make our lives more fulfilling and productive. It is losing faith in humanity.
The third is to exhaust all the possibilities for how you can benefit humanity simply by existing. It deprives mankind of the love that only you can bring to this world.
It means you are robbing the world of the joy that only you can bring. It means disappointing the people you will eventually love in your life, who will learn from you what it is like to be happy and will enjoy seeing your smile every day.
Maybe you’re not happy or at peace right now, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be that way forever, especially if you’re giving yourself another day.
The courage you demonstrate by living another day despite your pain.
The fourth is depriving all those who rely on us for a portion of our income as a result of our very existence. Taking away the happiness that we bring into people’s lives solely because of our earnings.
Doctors’ and health care workers’ lives are significant because they have a daily impact on the lives of many people.
Even on days when I am sad or have cried over something silly, I know patients will come to me just to ask about the frequency and instructions for taking their medications. Some will come just to hear my reassuring words. Some will come to have their wounds examined just to hear that they are improving. Some would come to have their summaries written or documents signed for reimbursement. Those few moments we spend signing and stamping those documents may seem insignificant to us, but they can make a significant difference in financial management for that patient who is struggling to arrange funds for his lengthy and difficult treatment.
We can put someone’s mind at ease with a little encouragement, a simple explanation of difficult medical terminology, or a complex management plan in very simple words—words he or she may have heard from anyone else and that made him or her extremely anxious, but now they relax because they can understand them easily.
With a handshake, we can bring a moment of comfort into a patient’s day and possibly boost their confidence. A kind or affectionate gesture will make them feel safe. Our genuine smiles make them feel better knowing they are not being treated by a doctor who is not concerned about their well-being.
It saddens me when physicians have months of regret, become depressed over cases they unintentionally mishandled, and lose sleep over all the lives they were unable to save. Why do they forget all the lives they’ve saved thus far? How about the families who will never forget them because they saved their loved ones? A person who improved as a result of our efforts was extremely important to that family and was greatly valued.
There have been instances in which physicians committed suicide because they were unable to manage everything perfectly as they desired. When they couldn’t save someone they wanted to. But what about all those times when they were the ideal caregivers to those who will never forget their care and thoughtfulness? People who enjoyed their care and felt safe and secure in their presence, as well as those who were confident in their abilities. Sometimes I wonder if the sadness and regret that drove these doctors to commit suicide was simply because they cared so much.
“Each smallest act of kindness—even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smile—reverberates across great distances and periods, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away.”
—Dean Koontz, From the Corner of His Eye
Now I realize that my happiness isn’t as important as feeling like my life has purpose and meaning. Kindness and goodness have an everlasting impact. They can make the world a better and safer place.
I believe in the butterfly effect. A small positive vibration can alter the entire universe.
Damane Zehra is a radiation oncology resident in Pakistan.
