Oh No! Negative

 DBG and Blood & Plasma Donation

The struggle between the easy thing to do, and the right thing to do: a tale as old as time. As perpetual and important as the establishment of good habits. 

Huh? 

What does one have to do with the other? 

Habits go hand in hand with discipline; it does, after all, supposedly take 21 days to form a new one. 21 days of discipline and commitment to a behavior. 

The more someone practices doing the right thing, the more natural and immediate the response will be in the face of adversity and choices.

For me personally, I practice this decision making through blood donation. As a child, I never really had a problem with needles, but my older sister did. It was logistically easier for us to have appointments at the same time, so I bore witness to her fears for years. During our first blood drawing, I watched nurses carry her out of the room ashen and have conscious, and it solidified my own learned apprehensions. Rationally, I knew everything was fine, but still my anxiety always spikes around needles. I get clammy, my heart pounds a bit faster, and I have to intentionally breathe at a normal or slowed rate. 

Sometime around 15 years old, I donated blood for the first time at church, and it was a less than pleasant experience. Those needles are far bigger than your average vaccination. In the mail a month or so later, I received a donor card stating my name, personal information, and blood type: O negative. 

I knew how important giving blood was, averaging three lives saved per donation, but this solidified my role in it. As a universal donor, I feel a moral obligation to donate my blood knowing the opportunity cost and risk/reward. I get poked and prodded a little, sit there in discomfort for about an hour, and within a day it's as if nothing happened, save perhaps a bit of bruising. On the flip, my blood goes straight to ambulances and trauma centers, a part of the equation with equipment and doctors that hopefully produces a life-saving outcome.

So year after year I donate, and year after year the needles get easier and easier. Maybe it's morbid, but I think about patients who have tubes and needles sticking out of them in all sorts of places or men at war, and I my apprehension feels rightfully insignificant. 

Let them take as much as they can since I've got it, and it will serve someone else much better than it serves me. 

The practice is almost selfish since it has indeed also served me well over the years. I feel more attuned to the human experience, and how easy mine has been. I know how lucky I am, and I get to do something to help others that is essentially effortless on my part. I've done nothing but exist, and for whatever genealogical reason, my blood can be received by anyone in need; it feels criminal not to donate with it being such a simple, but effective and life-saving act. 

What was once an unpleasant experience for me, is now routine and morally rewarding, as many difficult decisions are. The easy thing or the right thing? In building this habitual pattern over the last 8 years, the right thing is now an easy thing when it comes to blood donation. Discomfort breeds growth. 

The phrase is the easy way of summing up how these experiences have changed and expanded my psyche. So when I am faced with another morally challenging question, this easy, comfortable thing, or that challenging, messy, uncomfortable thing, hopefully in repeating this mantra I will take comfort in what the discomfort has to offer me in the long run. 

The finance major in me feels inclined to incorporate Fama's Efficient Market Hypothesis, chasing stocks day to day might feel like climbing a ladder of ambition, but the greater challenge is in trusting the market, and holding through bear and bull to realize the scientifically proven higher long-term returns. Discomfort breeds growth!

Anyway a three and a half line financial theory interlude is plenty for one blog post. I implore anyone reading to donate blood in the near future, especially if you are a first timer. Though the first go of it will be the most anxiety-inducing due to fear of the unknown, the human body is also strangely adept at forgetting these periods of physical discomfort. What will remain is the knowledge that you, without any real strain or effort, potentially saved three lives. And that you can do it again and again, just by being you. What a tradeoff!

So get out there and donate if you meet the requirements! Until next time, find your factor...

JJ