What's Next? What's It All About, Alfie?
October 1, 2018
Volume 9, Issue 10, October 2018
Page(s): p. 4
Sitting on a plane returning from a lecture, I sometimes find myself feeling down. Putting cases together, taking photos, and working on my keynote presentation is certainly a great deal of work, but it is also always exciting. All of the build-up to that few hours or days of sharing knowledge with fellow members of the dental community is one of the most exciting parts of life. Standing in the back of a room with your slides on the screen waiting for someone to announce your name or walking into a group of people who have taken time out of their busy lives to come to your lecture is overwhelming, and it is genuinely difficult to express how that feels.
Our professional lives are cyclical. When we are working toward a goal, we often become lost in the labors that lead to that awaited event. Sitting at the top of the hill, however, is bittersweet; it is what we have worked and waited for, but once it has arrived, we are too quickly on our way back down, and it is time to decide our next move. We all experience those feelings of sadness when something ends, and we worry what the future will hold. These feelings, which find me on the plane returning from a lecture, remind me of a phrase from an old song composed by Burt Bacharach and sung by Dionne Warwick, "What's It All About, Alfie?" I believe it sums up the feeling that is probably all too familiar to most people at some point in their lives. Sometimes it's in those moments of quiet, after all of the busy preparation and wonderful moments of achievement, that we realize that we crave something even greater than what awaits us at the top of the hill. Sometimes we need those moments of quiet to realize that we are thankful for something higher than our own professional success.
Peter Pizzi, MDT, CDT
Editor-in-Chief
ppizzi@aegiscomm.com
