Our professional lives so often conform to a transactional routine … submit this, test that … log this, balance that. Offsetting this bland reality are those rare occasions when one perceives positive movement in the world around us. For our office staff here at Pegasus Lectures, this ofttimes comes when a student calls excitedly with news they have passed a credentialing exam. Sometimes though, we are reminded that this profession can be much more than scores, measurements, reports and results.

A letter we received from a doctor in Armenia represents one of those special moments. You can review his original correspondence here. Dr. Vrej Sarkis, in a most unassuming way brings our focus to the bitterness and hope that can exist side by side in our life experience.

Without the smallest tone of self-pity, Dr. Sarkis notes that he was displaced by war and civil unrest in Syria. Relocating to a foreign land, he nevertheless perseveres professionally while ironically working to save or protect new lives coming into this world.

You don’t often get a sense of this, but what we do does matter … in big and small ways. Dr. Sarkis sees this clearly, quite possibly because he can juxtapose the strife and suffering we experience against the hope and joy associated with motherhood and bearing new life. No one is going to schedule a parade to honor Dr. Sarkis, but his everyday efforts have affected lives at their most vulnerable stage. That’s a good start in changing the world.