There are some days …

Some days during which had I not had my earbuds and my myPod and a Starbucks 2.3 miles from the newsroom, the situation at my desk could have gotten very, very ugly.  Like, boot in the monitor ugly.

Phone through a window and cord around a light pole ugly.

I’ll spare the details.

It’s been a hard winter. Maybe not as snow covered or bitterly cold as in other states but still … hard.

Everywhere you turn there’s some challenge, some uphill battle. Millions of people without work, businesses that want to hire but can’t make their bills so they’re too busy fighting off unrelenting banks. Meanwhile, they beg for a little help from their governments. There are students who stand to lose out on being best equipped for what is becoming an increasingly competitive and shark filled world as education is downsized. Teenagers, who by their very definition are ill-equipped are raising little human beings.
It’s been cold and it’s been snowy and it’s been bleak.

That’s how it seems sometimes anyway.

It can seem like it’s hard to see the light at the end of the day, much less a tunnel.

When it does seem that way, I drown the madness in milky espresso goodness, melting into a numbing period of pure avoidance.

That’s what I was doing over the weekend when I read an enlightening article about four-year-old pre-kindergarteners in New York City who are taking part in rigorous testing to get into the best possible schools in the city. The point of the article, incidentally, was to look at whether or not these tests accurately measure a child’s potential intelligence and chance for educational success.

Intelligence, it seems, can decline as these little geniuses get older. Oh boy does it.

That’s when the light bulb went off in my dull and weary mind. More tests! More tests for all!

Met the love of your life? You want to marry him or her? Counseling and blood tests are a breeze. Try writing a 10-12-page essay on how you would effectively solve a breakdown in communication with your spouse over the epic toilet roll battle.

Sound like fun?  Heck yes it does. Marriage to divorce rate drops – dramatically. Mark my words.

Teenagers are having kids of their own? How about along with health classes and abstinence counseling sessions or sex education courses, we give them a little testarooney.

Complete with multiple-choice, short essay questions and a five paragraph essay question.

Know about teething? First aid? Colic? Poo in the mouth? Wait until the last portion of the test where you get to spend three pages deciphering disgusting medical photos of infections trying to figure out which one is diaper rash and which one is just really bad pinkeye. Teenage pregnancies – bam!  Drop like mad.

After I daydreamed of administering thick, heavy-bound tests to everyone in the world, including the annoying sales counter person at the grocery store who thought it more important to chat with friends than keep the line moving, I moved on.

That’s when I read about Geoff Tabin. Mountaineer, adventurer, co-inventor of bungee jumping, doctor.

Medicine is always evolving. It’s nice because in some jobs, it seems like nothing is evolving and the lack of that can be frustrating.

In Tabin’s case, however, he reimagined his work and has taken on the hope to cure preventable blindness throughout the world. That’s not bleak.

He redeveloped the procedure used for cataract surgeries. So when he arrived in some of the worlds poorer but developing countries like Ethiopia (in the case of the story I read in the latest issue of National Geographic’s Adventure Magazine) he was able to perform cataract surgery, normally about $3,000 for about $20.

Then, he and his small but effective team performed more than 900 cataract surgeries, in just eight days. Giving that many people the ability to see. Restoring their opportunity to work, provide for their families and survive.

That’s not bleak at all.

That’s seeing the bigger picture.

That’s putting down the very threatening boot, leaving the monitor alone, hanging up the phone and remembering that there’s a chance for all of us to change the world a little.

Maybe even a lot.

Jessica Sieff is a reporter for the Niles Daily Star. Reach her at
jessica.sieff@leaderpub.com.