“Do you want to be like stagnant water or the roaring waves?”
MMI Insight 2020 #05
“We will just have to take our chances and make sure we do everything we can to tilt the scale towards making it better.”
Change. It’s such a powerful word, yet something that is easier said than done because there's always uncertainty behind every change.
I was a kid who kept her opinions to herself. When I joined an organisation in high school, I was pushed hard to speak out. I struggled with myself for the longest time while promising my supervisor that I’ll work harder to speak up. I tried but, in the end, it felt like it was for nothing - my supervisor gave me a final review of “didn’t see any effort being put in”.
This horrible experience made me despise myself. Looking back on it, I realized one thing - your efforts are not for others to see, it’s for yourself! What matters is if you think you’ve improved and changed for the better. Even baby steps matter! It took me the longest time to embrace this and become more vocal. I still have times when I falter. When that happens, I fall back onto this experience and remind myself that change is always uncomfortable.
In this new decade, I wish for certain changes in our country - an improvement in welfare for our medical officers, a healthy work culture in the medical workforce and better healthcare delivery for the people through technological advancement.
Let’s start this change by speaking up! We won't know what change will bring yet - be it good or bad. We will just have to take our chances and make sure we do everything we can to tilt the scale towards making it better. Even bad experiences teach us something, just like how it did me.
Do you want to be like stagnant water or the roaring waves? I’d take a leap of faith and choose the latter. What about you?
Ong Siu Ching is a final year medical student studying at Monash University Malaysia. She currently serves as the Head of Publicity and Design on the Malaysian Medical Summit 2020 Committee and is also the Events Director for MMI Malaysia.
