Fast forward 20 years into the future and we will be able to answer research questions that it took me 4 years of work to figure out in a matter of days or even hours. In 20 years many of the treatments and principles that we use in the clinic today will be replaced by better techniques and interventions. In 20 years the devices that we use to communicate and conduct business and pleasure will be radically different.
To an already existing example of this rewind 20 years. Molecular cloning and cell based assays for biological research were long and arduous with ambiguous readouts. Cancer treatments were far from targeted, contained a wide array of severe side effects, and we had a poor understanding of what actually contributed to the genesis and spread of the disease. And it would still be another 9 years until the first iphone was introduced.
However, as J.R.R. Tolkein writes through the words of Gandalf, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us”. We can look back at times in the past or dream of the days to come, but what our main concern must be is to decide how we can best use the time that has been given to us now. Likewise we can wish that our talents and gifts were different. Perhaps we think about how much greater of a difference we could make if only we were naturally a better athlete or naturally more intelligent.
The goal then is to be productive and efficient with what we have been given without pressure to perform outside of those constraints. Future advances and the achievements of others do not diminish what we do today. And at the end of the day, we are the ones who know if we did our best; our best after all is the most stringent and valuable metric of all.
JR.Stanley 