下载

Welcome to This I Believe-- an NPR series presenting the personal philosophies of remarkable men and women from all walks of life. From NPR news, this is weekend edition. I’m Lian Handsome.

I believe in mystery
I believe in family.
I believe in being who I am.
I believe in the power of failure.
And I believe normal life is extraordinary.
This I Believe.

On this Veterans Day. Today’s This I Believe essay was sent in by listener Joe Schmidt. Schmidt is a clinical psychologist at the Outpatient Veterans Affairs Mental Health Clinic in Oakland, California. He’s worked in the VA for 13 years. Here’s the series curator, independent producer Jay Alison.

Joe Schmidt says he finds our series to be a good counterpoint to the negative tanner of so much of what he hears in the media. In fact, he hears negative and even heartbreaking stories in his job, pretty much every day. And yet he realizes that from them, he’s derived a positive belief. Here’s Joe Schmidt with his essay for This I Believe.

I listen to people for a living. As a psychologist in the department of veterans affairs, I hear about some of the worst experiences humans have to bear. I have sat face to face with the Bataan Death March survivor, an airman shut down over Germany, a marine who’s at the chosen reservoir, veterans from every region of Vietnam, medics and infantry soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq. I have spoken with people who have been assaulted and brutalized by their own comrades and parents who have had to attend their children’s funerals. I have gained the surprising belief from hearing about so much agony . I believe in the power of human resilience. I’m continuing inspired by the ability of the emotionally wounded to pick themselves up and keep going after endureing the most tragic circumstances imaginable.

A veteran described to me the constant hell of unpredictable IED attacks and invisible snipers. By the time they get home, many can’t drive on the freeway or be in the same room with their old friends. One vet described being locked in an emotional cage between numbness and rage. Emerging from this terrible back job, many vets that have surprised me with their drive to recover and their unpredictable ways of giving back some meaning to their lives. For example, there was a veteran whose most powerful therapeutic experience was helping his grandmother keep her small business running. This course gave him a reason to care. Someone to emotionally connect with. And ultimately, a reason to get up in the morning. this might sound like naive optimism when in fact treatment is often long and hard and not every story has a happy ending. Sundays, when I go home, my head hurts. I feel sad or worried or angry or ineffective. On these days I have to appeal to my own strategies for self care, pick myself back up and keep going. I went to school to learn how to help people get better. Instead, it is often the very people I have spent my career trying to help that remind me how to care for myself. I keep a catalog of them in my head. And I try to use this list as a road map, an inspiration and a reminder of what human resilience can achieve.

I make it a point to compliment to strand the ingenuity of the people who sit in my office, but the truth is I don’t think many of them realize the depth of my aberration. Sitting in the room with these people every day allows me to hope that I might also find the strength to face future problems. This solid sense of hope is a gift and it’s my humble desire to share it with the next person who sits with me.

Joe Schmidt with his essay for This I Believe. Schmidt says that it’s part of his job to train interns and this essay was a way of explaining why the job is so important to him. You can find information about submitting your own statement of belief at our website, that’s npr. org/thisibelieve. You will also find all the other essays sent in from around the world. For This I Believe, I’m Jay Alison.

Jay Alison is the co-editor with Dan Gediman, John Gregory and Viki Merrick of the book This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women. A week from tomorrow, on NPR’s All Things Considered, an essay from Alice Brock of Alice’s restaurant fame. She believes in improvisation.

Support for This I Believe comes from Prudential Retirement.

This I Believe is produced for NPR by This I Believe Incorporated and Atlantic Public Media. For more essays in the series, please visit npr.org/thisibelieve.

不错哦...

so nice~~~
just enjoying myself ,thank u@

非常感谢楼主,我在这里受益非浅