seeking the gold star

I was in the emergency room during COVID. I was there not as an ER physician but a hospitalist physician, doing a patient admission in the ER because there were no beds on the wards. People were anxious and angry; the day felt interminable and stressful. Amid the coughing, groaning, shouting, alarms, and overhead announcements, there was one nurse who was speaking to everyone kindly. She was one of the out-of-town  nurses who had flown in from Toronto to help us out, because so many staff members were off sick. We introduced ourselves, and she gave me a huge smile.
“You deserve a gold star,” she said, peeled one off a sheet in her pocket, and affixed it to my name tag. My eyes filled with tears.

I learned very early about the beauty of a gold star. Even in kindergarten, I lived for the stickers on my page of printing, the red ribbon for being first to finish the spelling book; the certificate, plaque, medal, trophy. I learned that if I did certain things, I was praised and rewarded, and it felt good. Until much later, I never questioned why this external validation was important, nor how it might feel to those who never earned the gold star.
 
     I placed dead last in a couple of figure skating competitions and decided I did not like that feeling. I joined synchronized skating instead, and as a team we won­–problem solved. I continued to pursue the highest grades, the scholarships, the elite university program, medical school. When I chose residency in Northern Ontario, some people raised their eyebrows: was family medicine in smaller communities a demotion? Had I finally been taken down a notch?
I knew what they did not: that a family doctor in a Northern community takes on many, many roles, from minor surgery to delivering babies to dealing with major accidents to managing heart attacks, all without the specialist backup of larger centres. At some level, another attempt to say, You think that’s difficult? Bring it on!
 
     We, as a society, give gold stars in a number of ways. We reward achievement with praise, prestige, money, jobs, scholarships, opportunities, awards. And now, of course, with tweets, likes, shares and followers. It’s easy to get lost in the murk of reviews and opinions. It’s easy to forget why we chose to do something in the first place.
 
     After a while, the endless pursuit of the gold star gets exhausting and frustrating. It took me far too long to figure out my intrinsic motivation, to unlock that part of myself that contains the why. There’s nothing wrong with aiming high, pursuing excellence, or having goals. But we need to know our purpose.
 
     I like to think I’ve given up my need for a gold star, but that day in the ER proved otherwise. I hadn’t had a literal gold star in years, and it absolutely changed the course of my day. How sad, perhaps, that I needed that small perfect gesture. How wonderful that that’s all it took. How restful to now know that within me, all the time, is the ability to say girl, you are doing the best you can. Keep trying.