Don’t take responsibility for everything that happens around you — Weekly Newsletter # 5

Hello friends

In this edition of weekly newsletters, I am going deeper into my thought patterns. I learned about not taking so much responsibility for everything that happens around me.

In my second therapy session this week, we talked about an interaction with a customer that made me feel like a loser and highly critical of myself. It was about the sale of codeine-containing products.

As usual, I asked him if he had it before and how long ago was it. He answered that it was about a week ago, so I told him that if the pain persists after three days of using the medication, he needs to get that pain checked. There could be a variety of reasons why the pain still persists, and if it didn’t get checked, there is a possibility that it could become worse.

He said that he just wanted to get the pain over with. I told him, “I am not comfortable selling this painkiller to you. I can refer you to your GP, who can assess the underlying cause of the pain. If you are in terrible pain, I will urge you to go to the A&E or call 111.”

He was not happy with this advice and shouted at me, saying, “I am not a junkie, and you are being discriminatory against me. I am going to make a complaint. Is there anyone else I can talk to?”. I then asked another pharmacist who worked with me that day to deal with him, which was the end of this interaction.

Photo by Dmitry Vechorko / Unsplash How would you feel if people shouts at you every day?

The important thing here is analysing my reaction to it. I was being highly critical of myself, and for the first time, I noticed it. I told myself what a loser I was. I was then reminded of the time I was rejected from medical schools. That further made me feel inadequate and overwhelmed. Realising this, I noted my thoughts down as suggested by my therapist. Let’s call my therapist Luffy, after the main character in One Piece.

Luffy’s first comment is that my work is inherently stressful because I often deal with people who are behaving aggressively. I never thought of the work as inherently stressful. My thought pattern here is that when people shout at me, I must have done something wrong.

Luffy explained that this is one of the features of our brain. Our brain associates specific actions with certain feelings, and if we do not process them enough, these associations will remain with us.

He then asked me to draw a circle, jotting down why the customer reacted the way he did.

Here are my lists:

1. I could have used better words.
2. I could have been more polite.
3. He was abusing painkillers.
4. He had a bad day.
5. He had no breakfast and feeling grumpy.
6. He was in pain and getting impatient.
7. He had to wait for a while, and the wait increased his stress level.
8. There is not enough staff to manage the queue, so people become impatient.
9. Products containing codeine is still legally available to purchase from pharmacy, putting pressures on the pharmacy to protect the public against the harm brought by codeine addiction. On this note, most EU countries do not allow the sale of such products without a prescription. This is also the position in Canada. The UK, unfortunately, is too relaxed about selling codeine products over the counter while overly strict on cannabis.

Next, I assigned a percentage to each of these reasons, leaving any reasons that involve me to the last. Thus, for example, I attributed 50% of the reasons to reason number 3, while the reasons involving me contributed to only 5% of the incident. In other words, I put the incident in the context of a bigger picture, and I managed to let go of the feeling of inadequacy.

Photo by kychan / Unsplash

Luffy said that as a child, we lack the capacity and experience to understand the bigger picture. Instead, we rely on people around us to not lose the trees from the forest. However, our brain associates emotions with specific actions, and unfortunately, as we grow older, such connections are embedded in our brain that it appears without us even realising.

Next week, I will write about the second issue that I discussed with Luffy. Hint, it is about pressure at work.

I immediately became more relaxed, and Luffy noticed it. He said that he could see it in my shoulders. I am not sure what he meant, but I agreed with his observation. After that, I did feel more relaxed. It feels as if a massive boulder over my shoulder was lifted.

Luffy’s key message is that I don’t have to take responsibility for everything that happens. I could take responsibility for my contribution to it, but that is the limit.

Whenever I find myself being highly critical and unkind, I need to think about the bigger picture and how my actions contributed. In practical terms, I need to brainstorm external reasons and figure out what other factors contributed to the situation. Chances are, it is only a tiny proportion.

After the session, I kept thinking about when I was rejected from medical school, I chose actuarial science. But at the last minute, just after my A-Level results were announced, I decided to do pharmacy instead. I felt confused because I was still not sure what to do with my career.

Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng / Unsplash

So rather than focusing on this thought, I decided to focus on pharmacy first as it is something that I have already achieved. Along the way, I will figure out what works for me and what don’t so that one day, I can be on the path that best suits me and bring out my best self. Thus, I created a page where I collated all the pharmacy knowledge I have built up over the years. You can find the page here.

It is still a work in progress. I drew inspiration from Hana Pharmacy Checklist. I thought that I should have a checklist for every P medicine that I sell. This would help me manage the sale of codeine products, which I struggled with the most.

In the future, I want to expand the page to include legal skills, mooting and all other topics I am interested in. I will then reserve this website for my thoughts and stories, a bit like a diary.

Thank you for reading if you made it this far.

Have a good week.

Syafiq.

This week, I did not get a chance to collate three things that I enjoyed because I was working for seven days straight. So, I made a list of three stores I liked working in the most.

1. Boots at Tottenham Court Road/Goodge Street
2. Boots at High Street Kensington
3. Superdrug in Bicester

Originally published at https://www.syafiqkay.com on September 27, 2021.