In the film The Miracle Worker, there’s an intense scene in which Helen Keller (played by Anna “Patty” Duke) and Anne Sullivan (played by Anne Bancroft) have a battle over breakfast.

The deaf-blind Helen, having received no education or training, is resistant to the efforts of her young teacher, Miss Sullivan, to instruct and guide her. Put bluntly, she’s spoiled. Miss Sullivan is intent on getting Helen to sit at the table, eat off of a plate, and use a utensil instead of her hands.

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Doctors and nurses recognize the limitations of human beings and incorporate that into their treatment plans.

That means that a patient might be prescribed a treatment that is less effective but is easier to stick to.

I think that’s a bit paternalistic. As a patient, I’d want all of my options and all of the information whenever possible.

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Sometimes, the emotional weight of what we’re trying to do is too heavy.

We might be burdened by the shame of past failures.

We might have waited so long to do the thing that now it feels like too big a deal.

We might be scared of what will happen after we do the thing.

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When you’re confident, you can aim for a goal that will require more resources than you have.

You won’t reach the goal — you can’t — but maybe you’ll get farther than you would have if you had set your sights on something more reasonable.

I’ve spent a lot of my career exploring what happens when this doesn’t work. When someone sets a goal they had no business trying to reach, without the confidence to survive falling short.

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I look forward to the next time I get to play drums in a band.

I’m not sure when it will happen. Of the drum sets I own, only one is local and it’s been appropriated by the leader of a local steel band (whom I happen to be married to). The floor tom sits in the closet, while the rest of the pieces live on the campus of a nearby school.

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