Day-Tight Compartments

At ACU Summit, I was introduced to a man more fascinating than most I have encountered. William Osler lived in late 19th & early 20th century and the more I learn of him, the more I learn of his (direct) impact on my life. Expected to go into ministry, he shifted courses and pursued medicine instead attending medical school at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Dr. Osler would go on to attain the pinnacle of multiple fields. He chaired four different medical colleges. He was widely published in philosophy and theological papers. He took a job as Physician-in-Chief at the newly founded Johns Hopkins Hospital and revolutionized the way medicine was taught, insisting that doctors learn by exposure to patients in the wards of the hospitals (i.e. This is the guy responsible for creating medical residencies!!). He once said that

"To study and treat disease without books is like sailing uncharted seas, but to study and treat disease without patients is to never have gone to sea at all."

Having accomplished so much in one life he was invited to speak at the Sillman Lectures (a very big deal then) at Yale University. The Yale students wrote him and asked him if he would address them separately the night before the main lectures. They asked him how one man was able to accomplish greatness in such a diversity of fields - medicine, philosophy, theology. He agreed and gave perhaps his greatest speech. He called it "Way of Life." He told them the key to his success was the ability to live in what he called "day-tight compartments." One must focus one's energies on the day in front of them believing firmly that "This is the day the LORD has made" and we must "Rejoice and be glad in it."

Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day's work absorb your entire energies, and satisfy your widest ambition.