I recently read an obituary for a film maker, Roger Graef, of whom I had never heard, but who obviously made many excellent TV films concentrating on changing the ways that victims of injustice were treated. It quoted him as saying: "All I ever wanted was to make a difference", and that sparked a new line of thought for me. Surely, I asked myself, that is what every one of us, from the highest to the lowest in the land, should aspire to. And I thought to myself that it would be good if this could be carved into the tombstone of my life, "Nora made a difference".
Can I predict now whether my life will indeed have made a difference to somebody, or to some groups of people? And if so, in what way? I'm thinking now not so much of a personal difference, to my friends and family, but to a professional one, as a five element acupuncturist. All the people who have been treated by me, the people I have talked to in my evening classes, the people I have taught at SOFEA, in European seminars and now in China, all the people who have read or are still reading my books or watching my teaching videos, all these together add up to a goodly number of people. And among these must surely be many for whom what I have done, either by teaching them, talking to them or treating them, has had some effect upon their lives. And, if this is so, then I have indeed, through my five element practice, made a difference.
But the kind of difference I would like to make is less personally focused upon me than that. I would like to feel that through my actions I have managed to contribute to rescuing five element acupuncture from the peripheral position it was beginning to be consigned to at the time of JR Worsley's death, and placed it firmly back centre stage again in the eyes of the acupuncture world. I think we have taken the first steps on the way to doing that, but there is still a long way to go to loosen Western medicine's hold upon the practice of all complementary medical disciplines, including still much of acupuncture. First steps are always the most difficult, but I am happy that, in this battle for the survival of traditional forms of Chinese medicine, I have managed to enlist the help of the Chinese acupuncture world, with its vast resources, particularly through the contributions made by Professor Liu Lihong.
I hope that by the time I am no longer able to teach, more steps will have been taken, and perhaps even, if the Chinese are involved, there may have been giant strides. Then indeed I like to think that I would have earned the words on my epitaph, "Nora, you did make a difference."
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