| Journal |
Fall 2001
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The editor: Putting things in perspective
Along with many of my friends and colleagues, I commented several times after the September 11 horror, how most, if not all, of our personal individual problems were so insignificant compared to what happened on that day.
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| Helping build goodwill: Leif K. Bakland, SD’63, recently traveled to Sir Run Run Shaw Hosptial in Hangzou, People’s Republic of China, to present a series of lectures on endodontics. |
We have computer problems almost daily, most
of us have days when things don’t go right, and many of us have aches
and pains periodically that are annoying. But that is what so many of
the situations we complain about are: annoying. They are molehills compared
to the horror of having to make the decision to jump to one’s death
versus being burned alive.
This observation is not a prelude to repeating the oft-heard comment when
seeing someone else’s trouble—count your blessings and be thankful
for how much better off you are (although it certainly does not hurt to
frequently count our blessings and not only when we observe others’
unfortunate circumstances).
My main purpose for starting out this column with a reminder of the recent
horrors is to remind myself (and those reading these lines) to put things
in perspective: Yes, September 11 was a horrific day with incredible pain
and suffering. That day, evil was able to catch everyone’s attention.
A casual observer from outer space might assume that human beings only
know how to hurt each other.
But goodness also was highlighted that day—who can look at a firefighter,
policeman or any other emergency personnel and not feel gratitude. Goodness
in many forms of kindnesses to fellow human beings can actually be observed
on a daily basis around us. Consider the feature topic this issue: Service
learning. Our students and faculty reach out both locally and worldwide
to provide some much needed relief from dental disease. I am going to
be bold and say that the donor report in this issue shows another important
aspect of goodness—without the loyal support and involvement of our
alumni and friends, many of the activities that enable us to fulfill our
mission here would not be possible.
All of us have many opportunities to perform various deeds and services
that help lessen the pain and suffering of our fellow human beings, both
at home and around the world. We will try to share such information in
these pages as much as we can; to that end, we would be pleased to receive
information about projects that our alumni are participating in. Contact
either Nancy Yuen at nyuen@sd.llu.edu or me at lbakland@sd.llu.edu or
by mail or phone. We would love to hear from you. In the meantime, happy
reading.
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Leif K. Bakland, SD’63
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