You've got mail - By Sarah Painter

I almost didn't come on this trip...

Interesting that I find myself on the cusp of the long journey to Vietnam. It's hard to believe that the day is upon me. As I begin to gather my things and prepare for my time away from home, I find myself reflecting on how it came to be that I arrived here.

My 2016 began with an incredible bang that I had long planned for: An adventurous visit to Whistler-Blackcomb for snowboarding and then virtually straight out to the sunny beaches of Mexico for the wedding of good friends. Even before January arrived, I was already prepared for the fun and excessiveness that awaited me. I had planned it for months. It was going to be about my own personal enjoyment and me. I looked forward to it.

In July, I received an invitation to join a medical mission for a charity named Canadians Helping Kids in Vietnam (CHKV). They would be traveling to the country in February for just slightly shy of three weeks. The list of team members was both familiar and impressive, many of them colleagues I have practiced alongside in the emergency rooms of Winnipeg. The goals of the trip were diverse, but most energy focused on providing a robust educational symposium for the physicians and nurses at the hospital in Long Xuyen.

I recall looking at the email with a knot in my stomach. At first I was wondering how I could afford such a journey since the organization is grassroots with all members finding their own way financially in order to ensure that other proceeds from fundraising are directed towards maximizing assistance to the country. The more I thought about it, the more it became clear that there were other protests plaguing my mind, reactions that were somehow darker. I had hoped to go on two trips to the mountains this year. I didn't think I'd be able to do that if I went to Vietnam. Something would have to go. I was disappointed that I would need to make a concession in order to entertain this opportunity. I don’t like the feeling of sacrifice.

I felt suddenly ashamed of this thought...

The longer I contemplated my decision, the more thoughtful I became. I realized how embarrassed I was about my internal reaction to this trip. How could I have become so selfish that I would pass up an opportunity to help others so that I could go on yet another lavish vacation?

I started to think about the world that we live in. I am an avid consumer of news media and follow international affairs closely. I am routinely discouraged, saddened, and concerned at the state of humanity. I sit in the comfort of my home while I listen to the World at Six on CBC radio and I think about how the world should be a better place than it is.

And so here I find myself in front of this email inviting me to participate in a medical mission with feelings of indecisiveness. An opportunity to do something different and meaningful lay before me. Yet I am paralyzed.

I am out of my comfort zone.

How easy it is to sit back and expect that the world be a different place. What a convenient concept for a person from a first world country; this notion that I want the world to be better yet should come at no personal cost to me in particular. In a world ravaged by inequality, we all play a role whether we are able to recognize it or not. There is white that answers black.  Day and night. A yin and a yang. There is privilege and there is disadvantage. One does not exist without the other. These are not mutually exclusive concepts. Somewhere along the line my advantage translates into someone else's deprivation, because my life is not in isolation from others. This is the concept that has evaded my first world mind. I have led myself astray because at some point in time I became blind to my own privilege. My sense of entitlement to a life of good fortune has become insidious despite my lip service to the notion that it is an unbecoming way to view my place in the world.

I started to wonder what the world would be like if entitlement and privilege translated into a profound need to create balance...

Perhaps the remedy to inequality is grand gestures to even the scales. And if this is the case, it is incumbent on me to feel a responsibility to do so.

So I made a choice. I chose to be a different person than the one who initially opened the email.

I said yes.

As I sent my response I could feel myself stepping outside of my own safe boundaries, understanding that I had agreed to embark on a journey that has the capacity to change me as a person. I started to reflect on trips from years past that had me step outside these walls and challenge myself to grow in uncomfortable ways. As scared and uncertain as I have been in the past to do this, I have always found that it is infinitely more valuable than traveling my familiar roads of comfort.

Maybe in life, opportunities that you need the most are the ones that appear out of the blue in your inbox when you least expect it.