My mission goes nowhere. I've searched everywhere, but no sign of G.O.D., no hard evidence that G.O.D. exists, no leads towards manufacturers or sellers, no G.O.D.-father who pulls the strings behind the curtain, not even skeletons of doped winners coming out of closets. All my initiatives backfired on me. This morning, three new messages from #1, The Boss, shouting: "I need results!", and "I need them NOW!", and "That's an ORDER!", without any clue how I should get these results or where I can find them. I feel depressed.
I enter room 472, Doc's office, and salute: "No jokes today, Doc. I still got the blues from last weekend."
Doc notices immediately: "Did you sleep well?"
"Like a log. I was lucky. It was quiet at the Emergency Department. At 06:00 AM, my female colleague looked me in the eye and said: «You are tired. Go to bed. I will take over. And take some vitamins, or you'll catch the flu.» Thanks to those two extra hours, I slept for almost three and a half hours."
"She could tell you were tired by looking into your eyes?"
"By looking at the two matchsticks I used to keep my eyes open. She threw a cup of ice-cold water in my face, and I didn't even blink."
"Don't expect me to be so generous with our time. The Shopping Trolley Racing starts at noon, a high-risk game where we expect many accidents, and right now, we have office hours, to give medical advice to competitors of the European Games. You'll need to swear the Hippocratic Oath of Secrecy."
"Damn you, bloody Hippocratic Oath of Secrecy. More swear words? Rostov! Should I spell The F-Word too? Fukushima Nuclear Disaster!"
"Okay, that's enough. Now you have the obligation to remain silent. Every bit of information you will hear while working with me is classified, even more top-secret than the launch codes of the Russian missiles in Mexico, almost as secret as the training of Paris Saint-Germain before a match in the Champions League."
"I don't know about Paris Saint-Germain, but I do have those launch codes for you on my phone, if you like. Don't worry. Secret is my middle name. My lips are sealed."
Our first patient comes in. It's a handsome, no, eye-blinding breath-taking good-looking man in his late forties. He shakes hands with Doc like they're old friends: "Hi Doc. Do you remember that pill you gave me last Friday? I told you, I invited those seven hot foxy ladies to come over to my place for the weekend and I was a little… concerned. At my age, Mister Johnson might refuse to stand up and deliver…"
Doc nods: "Yes, that blue potential prototype. You promised you'd tell me about your experiences. Did it work well?"
"I took it on Friday afternoon. It worked perfectly until Sunday afternoon. I produced and produced and produced… That pill was fabulous. If you can give me some more for the upcoming weekends, I would appreciate it."
"Were there any side effects?"
"No side effects at all, except for a little pain in my right arm: those seven hot foxy ladies didn't show up."
Doc waves it away: "When life gets hard, you need to get harder."
"Like I said: getting hard was never the problem."
Doc writes a recipe and the next patient enters, a teenage boy with a worried face: "Do you have the analysis, Doc?"
Doc looks into his papers and reads aloud what it says in the report: "Yes. You have AIDS. But don't worry. AIDS is no longer an instant fatal disease. There are treatments. You'll have quite a few years to look forward to."
The boy's worries multiply by seven: "AIDS? One weekend with seven hot foxy ladies, and now I have AIDS? What a disaster. I can give it to my girlfriend, and she can give it to my brother, and he can give it to his school teacher, and she can give it to the rest of the school, and they can give it to the entire village… What should I do, Doc?"
Doc doesn't worry at all. A good doctor always gives good advice and Cuban doctors are the best in the world. He says: "Don't worry. Move to the Netherlands. Give the AIDS to the Dutch; they are happy with everything they get, as long as it's free…"
The next patient is a well-dressed woman in her early thirties.
"Good morning, doctor. I have a depression, for already more than a year. The stress, the tears, the pain… Do you have something to make me feel better?"
First, Doc calms her down. Her worries are nothing to worry about: "You're not the only one with a depression, Miss. Millions of people suffer from the same problem. In our Western society, we don't learn how to take care of our emotions. But if you expect me to prescribe antidepressant medication, I have to disappoint you (oh, sorry, you're already disappointed). According to recent scientific studies, over 98% of the patients on antidepressants experienced no effect, or even a negative effect. I have something better for you…" Doc looks on the shelf behind him and hands her a book: "Read this: «Stories for in the Campfire», by Ronaldo Siète. Humour is the best medicine against a depression. Learn to laugh at your problems."
The woman's smile appears and disappears like Mona Lisa's: "Nice try, Doc, but your trick doesn't work for me. I'm the publisher of «Stories for in the Campfire». Those bad jokes and the disappointing sales caused my depression."
Doc asks for further info: "Disappointing sales?"
"Three months ago, we printed 1.000 copies. Now, after sales and returns, we have 1.100 copies in stock. We've signed the first book in history with negative sales. That writer is the biggest joke ever in Dutch literary history, but you won't see me laughing, that's for sure."
Doc puts a serious face now: "I see. In that case, there's only one effective solution: therapy."
The woman's face turns into a horror story: "Therapy? I followed therapy for so long… It's a road that leads to pain, and it's a long road. I don't have time for therapy. I expected something better from you, Doc. Now, I feel even more depressed."
Doc assures her with his most professional smile, the smile he reserves for patients who pay in cash: "My therapy will take only five minutes."
The woman tries a tired smile: "Really?"
Doc asks me to bring him a glass of water. He drinks half of it and puts the glass on the table: "What do you see?"
"Oh, Doc… Not that stupid, old story about the glass being half full or being half empty. Do you think I don't know that old fable about the optimist and the pessimist? As a professional publisher, I know both Points of View. First the pessimist, who sees the glass as half empty. He wants to take a walk, but it's cloudy. For being a pessimist, he believes it will start to rain, so he doesn't go. The rest of the day, he's depressed because the weather spoilt his day. Is the optimist a better choice? The optimist sees the same clouds but expects it to stay dry, so he goes out for a walk. But of course, it starts to rain when he's far away from home. He returns cold and wet, gets the flu, and spends the rest of the week in bed, sick as a cow with hay fever. Happy endings only happen in fiction, Doc. Real life is sad as a snowstorm and always ends with a funeral."
Doc doesn't give up. He's an optimist: "You haven't heard my story. That's your problem: you're depressed because you think you know it all, and you are convinced there is no cure.
» Imagine you have only one week to live. Would you spend that week crying about how unfair life is? Or would you change your attitude, immediately, and make your last week the best week of your life?
» You're having a depression, so I'll make the bad news a little worse: nobody guarantees you'll have seven days left. It might be less. You better start living now. Are you ready to change your attitude? Or do you prefer to spend the rest of your life crying?
» You're smart. I think you'd take your last chance and live like you have nothing to lose. And that's how you cure your depression: flip the switch. Decide to change. It takes one second, but it will cure you forever. Stop worrying and start living. Enjoy every second that's given to you. What can you do now to turn today into a wonderful experience?"
The woman is silent for a while. She's never looked at life this way. Life is there to enjoy. Don't waste time and energy on worrying. Focus on living.
She flips her switch: "You're right. I want to change. Everybody wants to live happily, but… I don't know how."
"It's easy: push negative emotions away. Turn off the daily news and stop paying attention to negative people around you. Concentrate on positive experiences. The basic problem is our laziness. Negative feelings are free, but if you want positive sensations, you'll have to work for it. The harder you work, the better they get. You're not lazy, are you?"
"I'm a working girl, Doc. I've worked my way up, but now, my work gives me so many negative results, financial and emotional, that I can't work it out anymore. Giving up my job won't solve anything, and I can't turn off those feelings without pharmaceutical help."
"There is a medicine, Prepoleptyl. It will take away your emotions, not just your depression and negative feelings, but also your capacity to love and wonder and laugh and enjoy. I'm testing that medicine right now, and I don't recommend it to anyone. Emotions are what we live for. You don't want to turn off your emotions; you want to learn how to dominate them. I can teach you how, but not if you keep talking. You don't have to tell me what I already know. I'm a doctor. You don't have to tell me anything. All you have to do is: listen and learn."
The woman tries to change her attitude. She's really sick of being depressed, and even sicker of not finding any way out of the golf putt she's in: "I'm sorry. I'm listening."
"Do you want to stay in that golf putt or do you want to get out?"
"I want to get out."
"Are you prepared to do anything, absolutely everything it takes, to get out of that putt?"
"Yes. Whatever it takes. But there's nothing that helps."
"There is. I want you to sign a contract. I want to see this on paper. That's one condition of doing whatever it takes."
Doc takes a sheet of paper, writes on it: «I,
Now, Doc starts his therapy: "You have a problem. You're depressed. How do you solve bad feelings? By feeling good! Flip the switch. Be happy. Laugh. Have fun. Enjoy every minute of your life. Do wonderful things. When you meet a nice person, ask hor to have coffee with you, or invite hor for lunch. Take the train to Paris and climb the Eiffel Tower. Take a walk through the city and look at all those people who are not as pretty, well-dressed, well-fed as you. Meet the homeless, the ones without a job, the ones in wheelchairs. Visit the seventh floor of this hospital, where terminal patients are waiting for their dying seconds. All you have to do is realise what you have. All you have done so far was focusing on what you don't have, and you do nothing, absolutely nothing, to solve even one problem. Don't hide in your golf putt of depression with the comfortable conviction there's no way out. There is. Look up!"
The woman didn't expect this. She sits paralysed in her chair. Doc repeats his line: "LOOK UP! What do you see?"
Confused, the woman answers: "I see… the lights…"
Doc smiles in triumph: "I want you to see the light. The only way to push your negative thoughts away is to replace them with positive thoughts. Only you can do that, and you can, but you have to train positive thinking every day. We are what we repeatedly do. As Aristotle had already said: «Excellence is not an act but a habit». You created a habit of negative thinking and called it «a depression». Flip the switch, make positive thinking your new habit, and you're cured.
» Look up and realise what you have, how wonderful your life is, full of opportunities and full of ways to solve every problem you'll find on your way. The current generations have never learnt to solve problems. Satisfaction is the best medicine against depression, and you find it every time you've solved a problem. You won't get positive feelings for free: you'll have to work for them; the synonym of «work» is «solving problems». Solving problems is your therapy, and facing a future with many solved problems is the goal you focus on. Problems are part of life. Successful people are successful because they solve their problems instead of looking left for help, or right to complain, or backwards to blame others. All you have to do is flip the switch. It will take you one second. Laugh about yourself. Your depression only exists in one place: in your head. If you can put it there, if you can keep it there, you can take it away too. Do you see the light?"
"I think… This is not easy to understand…"
"Yes, it is. I showed you a glass with water and you thought you already knew the story. You saw the optimist and the pessimist. I see the realist. When I get thirsty, I have half a glass of water to start with, and when my glass is empty, I can ask my friend Bugs for a refill. No problem. Your metaphor about taking a walk when it's cloudy? I'll take an umbrella and a raincoat with me. When it starts raining, I'm happy: I was smart enough to prepare myself. When it stays dry, I'm happy: I went for a walk and enjoyed the nice weather. You and I live in the same world, but I look at it differently. I don't have a problem. I have half a glass of water, and I have two hands and a brain to solve any problem that might show up later. If you can learn to think like me, you're cured. I flipped the switch…"
The woman starts to see the light: "So when my problem is that I feel depressed…"
"The way I see it is: you think you are depressed. Well? How do you solve that? If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. Imagine you're happy. Don't expect too much of yourself. Be happy with what you are and what you have. Be happy. That's all you need to do. Look at yourself in the mirror and be realistic: your health and your beauty will never be as good as they were yesterday, but they are still a whole lot better than they will be tomorrow. What you see won't change when you feel bad about it. Accept it as it is and focus on solving the problems you can solve. What do you want to do today? What makes you happy? What is your dream? How do you reach that goal? Dedicate time and energy to it."
"Yeah… I think I feel better already…"
"You don't just think you feel better. You feel better. You are better. You are cured. And you cured yourself in less than five minutes. Bugs, tell me. When you look at this woman… What do you see?"
"I see a pretty woman, someone who dresses with good taste, a woman I would like to meet or perhaps even have dinner with, an interesting woman with an interesting job who meets many interesting people. She just realised she's made a mistake when she signed that contract with that writer, but we all make mistakes. So take the loss, lift your shoulders and concentrate on the next project. That's what I would do."
The woman grows five centimetres, thanks to my words, but she's still reserved: "You know… I had this handsome man in my life. He used to say nice things like that to me. I thought I could trust him. I thought he loved me. One night, I saw him in a hotel with seven hot foxy ladies on his knees. Here in my heart, there's an empty space where he used to be. That empty space still hurts. I still got the blues for him. How do I cure that pain?"
I smile my most convincing smile and say: "Ma'am, with all respect… Do you love someone who treats you like dirt? It's natural you feel hurt, but the pain is a sign something should change. This man isn't worth your tears. Does he cry for you? Does he even think about you? All he thinks about is seven hot foxy ladies. Why do you torture yourself by thinking you love him? You treated him the best you could, didn't you? You have nothing to blame yourself for. Don't suffer more. Let him drop dead. Think about yourself. Think about all those nice and handsome men around who'd appreciate going out with a beautiful, smart lady like you. Spend your energy on people who deserve it. Take your loss; you've made a mistake, you've judged him wrong, but you should go on. Make your life worth living. You still have time, until someone moves you to the seventh floor of this building, for your final step. You can't avoid that final step, but you can do anything you want before it's too late. Am I right, Doc?"
Doc ends the therapy: "We all have our moments of doubt and pain. What you should do, what you signed to do, is this: start every day, right after you wake up, with fifteen to thirty minutes of positive thinking. Try to think about all the nice things you want to do. Remember the nice things you have done lately. Be aware of all those people whose life is a lot worse than yours. Make your plan for the day, for the morning. Make it a healthy morning ritual. After lunch, you take fifteen to thirty minutes off and repeat the exercise, thinking positively about yourself while you make plans for the afternoon and the evening. Follow one rule: sour before sweet. First, you finish one task, one little problem you want to solve, one solution you want to work on. You'll feel happy after you've been productive. Then, you reward your effort by doing something you enjoy. You can do everything you want, as long as you're patient and take the time every single task needs.
» Here, on the back of your contract, I wrote titles of some books, from writers like the Dalai Lama, Andrew Matthews, Robin Sharma, Susan Fowler, Stephen R. Covey, amongst others. Read at least one page per day. Keep doing these things, the reading, the positive thinking and the work-first-pleasure-later, for the rest of your life. It will take you up to one hour per day, but that's only a tiny part of the time you're wasting now with your negative thoughts and your negative feelings. Stick this contract on the door of your refrigerator, where you'll see it every day. Help yourself and remember to follow it. Trust me: this works. All you have to do is see the light and do what's good for you.
» Now, you have the Hell you came from, the Heaven to go to, and the map with the route. Your contract reminds you daily of the Hell you came from. Your Heaven is the goal you visualise daily, your future with fewer problems and more pleasure. The map is this therapy, working your way up from Hell to Heaven. Your emotions gave you your problems, but your reason will give you the solutions. At the end of the trip, you'll meet your own maturity, to guard the balance between your feelings and your logic, between your heart and your head, between what you want and what you should. That's the therapy. That's all there is. Five minutes. You've already found out that it works…"
Silently, I admire Doc for what he just did. When you want to change a habit, any habit, you need three things: knowledge, motivation, and skills. You need to be aware of what you want (Heaven), why you want it (Hell), and how to do it (the map). The knowledge is in the books. The motivation is the contract that reminds you every day of how you felt when you signed it. With the repetition of positive thinking and reading, you develop the skills.
Everyone wants attention. Everybody likes to be popular, to be admired and to be loved. We want others to tell us they admire us and love us, but we refuse to give these little compliments to ourselves, even when we need them so much. That's why Doc asked me to give my opinion about his patient: so she could feel better about herself. We value ourselves more, thanks to what others say, but we use our own power so seldom to pay others the pleasure of a compliment or a «thank you». Well, Cuban doctors are the best doctors in the world, as they say. I almost pay Doc a little compliment for his excellent «Flip the Switch» therapy, but he's running on Prepoleptyl, so…
The woman stands up, kisses Doc for at least five seconds full on the mouth, sighs: "They say Cubans are the best kissers in the world. I always wanted to know if it's true… I'm not sure yet…", kisses him again, until Doc turns blue, from passion or from lack of oxygen, and she thanks him sincerely.
Then the biggest surprise shows up. She turns to me and asks: "You are a nice man. Can I invite you to have lunch with me today?"
I feel my face getting hot. I don't know what to say. Doc saves me: "I'm sorry, ma'am, but we doctors have sworn an oath. We don't date our patients. If you insist, I can give you the names and phone numbers of at least seven of my colleagues who didn't swear that oath, but they have a waiting list; they need to entertain those seven hot foxy ladies, who came here earlier this morning with the same request."
The woman corrects herself and apologises to me: "I'm sorry. It wasn't my intention to embarrass you. It was meant as a compliment, but I understand I crossed a line of good behaviour."
"No hard feelings, Ma'am, and thank you for the compliment. Under other circumstances, I would be most pleasantly surprised when a fine lady like you invited me for lunch, but we have other patients waiting, and we have the Shopping Trolley Race this afternoon. They contracted us to work in the pits…"
As a proper gentleman, I kiss her hand and mutter: "It was a pleasure meeting you, Ma'am." I wipe my forehead after she closes the door.
"Your therapy worked a little too well, Doc. There's one more patient in the waiting room. Or do we have to go already?"
"Wait a second. I need to make a note in my agenda, to remind me to send her my invoice a month from now. If she'd know how much my five-minute therapy costs, she'd fall back into her depression golf putt forever."
The last patient of the day enters. She's about my age. She sits in front of Doc's desk and says: "I have a problem. Last year, I won the Olympic gold medal in the canoe. Two years ago, me and my team won the curling World Championship. Three years ago, I was European Champion sports climbing. Four years ago, I was Junior World Champion BMX racing. Five years ago, I—"
"What's the problem, Miss?", Doc interrupts.
"The problem is, you know, I didn't win anything this year, and it's October already. I have the blues. I'm depressed." The girl bends over to Doc and whispers: "Someone told me… you have a little… medicine… that can't be traced by the doping control, something to improve the chances of winning. How did they call it? EPO? No, it was… EGO, yes, that was the name they used. How much will it cost me?"
"Do you remember the name of 'someone'?", Doc asks.
The girl looks around as if she expects this mysterious 'someone' to come out of a closet: "Well, it's just a rumour I heard, two voices talking when I stood under the shower. I didn't even see their faces. They talked about the doctor who handed out the medals for the Pinball Wizard game. I checked the lists and… you showed up. Those lists are public, you know…"
Doc is interested in other things: "After winning all those medals and championships, don't you ever have enough? Do you need it so much to win more and more and more?"
The girl lifts her shoulders: "Well… You know… when you're successful, people start to expect things from you. When you know the high of winning, you feel down when you don't. You want to keep winning. It's like…"
"…an addiction. You're addicted to winning, and now you are depressed when you lose. Your depression becomes worse when the expectations get higher. Am I right?"
I think about the therapy of five minutes ago: don't expect too much from yourself. If you don't expect anything from life, life will never disappoint you. All the losers are depressed because they don't win, but also the winners are depressed because there always comes a moment when they stop winning. Depression is the colour of the other side of every gold medal. Playing to win is a lose-lose situation…
The girl tries to look indifferent: "I guess so. Does it matter? Just give me the pills. You helped the team of Luxembourg too, during the Waste Paper Basket Ball. One pill is all I need. Just to win the Shopping Trolley Race today. After that, I promise I will stop."
Doc shakes his head: "I don't give you any pills, and I don't give you permission to compete in the race. Officially, you're taken out of competition for administrative reasons. Unofficially, you're expelled for breaking the laws of sportsmanship and gentleman's behaviour."
"Gentleman's behaviour? I'm not even a man! Do you want me to walk like John Wayne? Do you want me to pee standing up?"
"You've heard what I said. And if you say one more word, I'll ask my assistant here to spank you. Are you out of your mind? Get out of here, and fast."
It takes Doc almost a quarter of an hour and two cups of strong black coffee to get his mind off the girl and her stupidity. I don't dare to say anything, but my mind is racing: the G.O.D.-doctor who did the medal ceremony after the Pinball Wizard was Tong Au… Tong Au is in Intensive Care because someone beat him up seriously… He's not from the Macao University Hospital… Tong Au is not his real name… That funny accent might be faked too…
Perhaps this mission is not over. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong direction.
"We have to go, Bugs. The Shopping Trolley Race is about to begin. Take everything we have because this promises severe damage, exactly what the audience likes most."
* * *
Shopping Trolley Racing: the competitors take a shopping trolley and race through the supermarket, filling their trolley with everything they need to prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner for a 4-people family for 7 days. They get a penalty of one second for every 10 cents they overspend their 100-euro budget, and a bonus of 15 seconds for every day with healthy food on the table. It's a race: the fastest time from the car park to the cash register wins.
The start is spectacular. The 49 housewives, one from each country, drive around on the car park. There are over 60 parking spots, but at the start of the race, they are all taken by remote-controlled toy cars. When the race starts, the computer instructs a random toy car per second to leave its parking spot. The customer parks, steps out of her car, grabs her shopping bag, and runs to the shopping trolley stand. All the competitors have the same car, a Simca 1000 (donated by the official sponsor of the event), painted in the colours of the flag of their country, and all-risk insured.
The prejudice that women are poor drivers (the facts tell the opposite, but men prefer the lie) is demonstrated on the first second of the game, when five cars all want to enter the same parking spot at the same time. The chaos is complete when the Italian and the Greek lady jump out of the car and start hitting each other with their handbags. Most others are here to win, so they don't join the fight but try to get one of the other parking spots, and enter the supermarket as fast as possible. Inside, the fun gets even better. There are special offers, there are baskets full of vegetables and fruits, there are piles of eggs from chickens that had a better life, but there are also huge containers with frozen food and cheap TV dinners. What's the best tactic here?
Some women take the speedway. They run as fast as they can through the aisles, scanning and calculating but not picking anything yet. Then, they make their decisions and return to make their choices. Others take more time to read the information, which pays off in offers «buy three, pay two» and ignoring a presumed healthy product with poisonous Chinese milk powder as an ingredient. A third group just runs as fast as they can to the cash register, filling their trolley with whatever is available, and hoping for a lucky draw. If you want to win, you have to take a risk.
The race is a hit, a huge hit, the biggest hit when the ladies from Estonia, Iceland and Finland hit each other full speed, each coming from another direction, and all three ending in the pile of cartons with eggs from chickens that had a better life. The cloud of dust, left by the Hungarian competitor who breaks the sound barrier through a stack of cartons with washing powder (only for high temperatures) is repeated on the big screens six times, each time from a different camera position and with slower motion. The crash between the woman from the Faeroe Islands and the woman from Cyprus right in front of the cash register is also one to repeat several times. Both trolleys fall over and both women have to go back into the shop for a refill.
It's a race without spectators; it's a giant supermarket with 200 cameras that register everything. How do you get an ambience of a full Olympic stadium in a clean and organized shopping mall? Muzak? A speaker who announces that, for the convenience of the clients, cash register number seven has been opened? The organization opened a direct line with the (sold out) Stade Francis-Le Blé de Brest where 16.000 spectators follow the race on giant screens. Their shouting is recorded and played live on the intercom system of the supermarket. The effect is like the race takes place in front of 16.000 crazy fans, which motivates the shopping women to give everything they have. (That's the price you have to pay: giving all you've got. It's a training to spend your money as fast as possible; isn't that what shopping is about?)
I have a busy day: three severely injured women and a dead alligator-leather handbag in the car park, two broken bones and two thousand broken eggs in the shop, seven trolleys can't finish because of mechanical problems, and when all the others have long passed the cash register finish line, the lady from Liechtenstein still sits crying on the floor in the middle of the central aisle because she can't find her husband's favourite ketchup.
The bronze medal is for Zorica Mršević from Serbia, who made the fastest time, despite spending 107 euros on deep-fried pizza and chocolate cake. Norway's Dorothe Engelbretsdatter did better and wins the silver because she only spent 97 euros to feed her family. The big winner is the Dutch Jet Roland-Holst, who managed to get seven healthy meals on the table for only 85,78 euros, which gave her enough bonus time to win the gold medal. The Dutch are now officially the most tight-fisted people from Europe. Jet doesn't care. She celebrates her victory in style: she opens a bottle of tap water.
"Champagne? Are you crazy? Do you have any idea what that costs? And those kids don't even drink it; they squirt it around like lemonade soda."