Going to the Dentist

Going to the Dentist

No one likes going to the dentist.  I doubt even dentists like going to the dentist.  Like many things in life, some things you do in order to prevent the horrible.  It’s like Woody Allen’s old definition that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable and you should feel lucky if you were just miserable.  Going to the dentist is miserable.  Not going to the dentist will end up being horrible.

Paul was lucky with his teeth, his career and his life.  A little preventive maintenance went a long way in all three.  He had had good teeth ever since his days as a child living in the tropics where the water was not fluoridated and the sugar cane was plentiful.  One bite on a sugar cane stalk was enough to rot every tooth in your young head.  While Paul had encountered a few bumps in the road of career and life, he had mostly navigated the shoals well enough to keep the boat afloat.

Paul had an appointment that afternoon to go to the dentist for his semi-annual cleaning and check-up.  It was strictly routine and preventative, but it took an effort and it was never a favorite way to spend an afternoon.  He would go, he would do the right thing and be thankful quietly that he would not suffer the consequences.

The problem for Paul was that as he moved, his dentist was always one stop behind him.  His dentist was on Staten Island. He had lived for three years on Staten Island.  That’s the outer-most borough of the outer-boroughs of New York City.  He had moved there to do the right thing for a project he was building; a 630-foot observation wheel like the London Eye, only bigger. He had tried his best, but the effort had gone sideways in the end and was sitting 65% built and now in the courts with the remaining pieces spread out around the world.

Every trip he took to Staten Island these days was an adventure in memory avoidance.  It was a great distraction for going to the dentist.  He would cross the Verrazano Bridge and look at the spot where the wheel should be sitting.  He would remember the effort and the pain that went into giving it his all.  Moving to a place that he would never have otherwise moved to.  Taking a dentist in a place that he would never have otherwise lived.

These trips to the dentist were important.  It is important to get out ahead of problems and it is important to reinforce your decisions in life.  Traveling to Staten Island to go to the dentist was a mission filled with purpose.  Let’s skip the benefits to longevity of plaque removal (Paul’s hygienist says it can otherwise shorten your life by 6-10 years).  Forcing yourself to relive the things you spent your life doing is an important practice.  Paul chose to take on the wheel project and he threw himself into it wholeheartedly.  How many people recast their lives to the point of moving to a place that would otherwise be undesirable, just to show commitment and give 100% of himself to the cause?

It is important in life to go all-in and Paul had gone all-in on the wheel and had left none of himself on the table in the process. He could look himself in the mirror and be assured that he had done all he could do.  Then why did it pain him so much to travel to Staten Island, to go to the dentist as it were, to relive the moments of his life and career that ended in failure?  Because it was not a failure is the only answer.  Failure is what happens when one gives less than one’s best.  Paul had given his all and his best to the effort.  He was actually proud of what he had accomplished even though there was no wheel where there was supposed to be.  Furthermore, he was one of the few people that still believed that one day there would be a wheel where there was none today.

The wheel itself was not the point.  The point was that passion is the ingredient that matters.  Paul had had the passion and he had only stepped aside because he had no choice.  He was prepared to work the issue to completion even without compensation, but that became impossible.  He had done his job and had no reason for anything but pride in the effort.

That was Paul’s philosophy in life.  He was on to his next effort and he was engaged with full passion.  There were hurdles, but that was normal.  He didn’t have a Staten Island to move to, but then again, great passions always involved moving to some version of Staten Island.  Maybe Paul was redefining Staten Island.  Maybe Staten Island was the equivalent of purgatory; a place you needed to go to get to heaven.

Wow, that was some heavy thinking that might be attributing way too much to a simple outer-borough.  Paul got to the dentist office and decided he would stop thinking about the wheel and Staten Island and just remember to rinse and spit instead.