By Christina Hornack, DO Immediate Past President of ACOEP-RSO AOA TIPS Fellow
WOMEN’S COMMITTEE UPDATE THE JOY OF SHOWING UP
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n a popular musical there is a reference made to “the room where it happens,” but where is this room and how do you get there? It turns out, as an adult, this is usually every room you’ve been avoiding, and you get there by just showing up. Most everyone you know is usually “too busy” to participate in another activity, and so engagement is generally low. But what if we could find time to attend that committee, or go to a class, or volunteer to help? The first time I showed up for one of these extra activities, it was a membership meeting for the honors society I had just been inducted into. At the time, I thought I would pursue the law, and my aunt told me that I would need to not only show up, but to be an officer in that group if I wanted to get into law school. I ended up running for an officer position which, after years of participating in one way or another, resulted in me being the speaker for my graduating class. Through my connection with the faculty mentor of that group, I was
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THE PULSE FALL 2021
able to nimbly change direction from law to medicine, get connected with all the people who could help me make that happen, and add things to my CV which would catapult me into medical school. No one wants another task added to their list. If you’re anything like me, you live somewhere between comfortably busy and overwhelmed every single day. But if we shift our focus from classifying things as “tasks” and instead look at them as “opportunities” it becomes easier. And really, that’s what they are. Obviously not every opportunity is going to change your life and your future profession. But then how do we determine where to invest our time, and where to decline participation? It turns out, we get the most out of the things we put the most into. And we put more effort into things that we enjoy. In the beginning of my “showing up” phase, I had no idea what I enjoyed doing. I ended up agreeing to participate in everything, and then had to cull back to just my
