Thank goodness it’s a new year. There’s something about January that reminds me of Spring. Like slush from a city street, we push the detritus of the old year to the sewer of time. January reminds us that it is a time for renewal, so bring out the plow. It’s a time to look back at the past and consider the future. To evaluate what went right and wrong. To make amends. To rekindle friendships and perhaps to undo hostilities with those with whom we don’t get along.

January is also a good time to think about how we can change things at work. How we can serve our communities better. I’ve been giving this a lot of thought; okay, maybe not a lot of thought, but I think about it sometimes, usually while in a fatigue induced haze while sitting on stand-by in my ERU for minutes on end. I seem to do so many calls that really don’t need doing. EMS is the catch-all social service, the call-them-cuz-who-else-we-gonna-call service. When things are falling through the cracks, we are the sieve that catches the wayward dregs, as well as the desirable bits. When the wheat and the chaff get thrown to the wind, both fall to us—the ailing pensioner and the broken body of another downed gang-banger—one as needy as the other of our transformative power to heal, or to deliver to those who can; to render useful from the useless; to reload the spent casing of life. And though we are willing players in this game called EMS, we are often unwitting participants in a force far exceeding our own. Mere spectators in the nosebleed section. For though we try, all our combined efforts mean nothing next to the cosmic scales of fate. Call it religion or destiny, but in either case we defer to a higher power.

Like a Facebook user who can’t say no, we approve every friend request; we go to every house where we are called; every filthy alley where we are summoned; every dark country road to which we’ve been beckoned. And, ideally, we go without passing judgment. Though we are human and our hearts and minds may be tainted by life experience, or painted with the rainbow colours of idealism and compassion, we treat all as equals; equal to us, equal to our friends, our families, wives, sons, daughters, husbands, mothers, fathers, and the last heroin addict or tweaker we picked up. All receive, by our grace and goodness, our kindest words and helping hands. Well, not always.

So even on a cold January day, as you read this magazine seeking professional enrichment and enlightenment, you think to yourself of all the ways you can make the world a better place. Christmas was good to you, and whatever your religion or faith or belief, you celebrated the season in the spirit that inspired it. You saw family and friends you haven’t seen in a while and you swore to keep in touch more; you gave to those less fortunate, or at least promised to think about it; you contemplated the troubled regions of the world and gave thanks that we live here in Canada. But the important part is that you gave thanks for living here, in a country that’s tolerant and a beacon of hope to the rest of the world.

As the great Canadian philosopher Don Cherry has said, “People think common sense is common—but it’s not.” And to this sequitur I add my own pondering: “Why does the IV sharp always roll under the stretcher?” These seemingly incongruent thoughts are in fact intimately connected, like a Zen koan, one a feasible response to the other. To seek comprehension to the mystery of the first observation leads us to the conundrum posed by the second. It is the stress of meditation on the question that in itself becomes spiritually illuminating. The path to our enlightenment is lit by our reflection on the Way; in this case, a realization that had we put the sharp directly into the sharps container it wouldn’t have rolled anywhere at all. And therefore, that ever elusive common sense is instilled in us where instruction and mentoring have failed to do so previously.

In this humble way does the year 2008 begin, with musings of our past and on the nature of our very existence. What will the new year hold for us? Will it be a year to look back upon forever with fondness, like the summer of ’42, or in my case ’77? Will it be a vintage that we cherish like a memory of a great wine degusted until the day we die? Will it bring tragedy and sadness, testing our mettle, our faith, our will and our sanity? Or will it be full of sound and fury, but signify nothing more than the passage of another twelve months? And what role do we have if any in the shaping of this destiny? The fatalistic will say that we have none. That what we think or want or decide will mean nothing, because we’re just here for the ride, subject to the whims of greater forces than ourselves. The egotistic would say that the world is here for our bidding, that what we demand becomes a wish fulfilled. But probably most of us live our lives with modest expectations and the conviction that what we put into it we get out of it—a farmer’s karmic cliché: we reap what we sow.

Back to my earlier observation, then, about doing too many calls that don’t need doing, and a reminder of the Alcoholics Anonymous Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.” While I don’t purport to live my life by so simplistic a slogan, I recognize the wisdom behind the words. There is so much about our job that is challenging. At times even overwhelming. Sometimes we feel that the weight of the world is heaped upon us, that we must act quickly, decisively. Lives depend on it. And as if we didn’t put enough pressure on ourselves, there are others whose demands are equally, if not more, burdensome: the family member begging us not to let their loved one die; the Crown attorney telling us that the entire prosecution rests on our testimony; the supervisor asking for your flu immunization letter. Best re-read the Serenity Prayer.

I am currently in my 25^th year in EMS. And while there are ups and downs and I intermittently love this job and hate it, every new year that has come around has brought the same professional challenges, threats and rewards. As in life itself, it is not in the challenges we face that determine the good or bad in a day or a month or a year, but in the character we choose to summon to meet those challenges that reveals our integrity, or lack thereof.

I hope you have had a fantastic 2007 and that you were able to summon all the courage and integrity to see the year through in whatever way you declare success. May this new year bring you health and happiness in your personal life and your career.