Betrayal

 Such an ugly word, right?  I don't even know if I should go here but at 2:25 am this is what is on my mind and I can't quiet it.  If we're going to be discussing our Open Secrets maybe this is the Open Secret that has to be discussed first.

Let me start with an experience Brad and, by virtue of being married to him, I had some years ago when we first came out of dental school.  I'm not sure what was the hardest, the first 4 1/2 years of bouncing around (when we moved 7 times in those 4 1/2 years) or when we almost went bankrupt when we bought the practice here.  It's really a mute point...we've passed through those portals and we survived.  We are changed and different for sure, but still we are on the other side.  This experience that I am about to share with you came in the first 6 months after dental school.  Also, this is not something Brad wrote.  I am doing this without his permission (I hope it is okay...eek!).  The way that he would share this might be a little different than what I have to share here.  You'll get the gist of it though.

One of the first doctors Brad worked for as an associate (an associate doctor/dentist is one who works in a practice but is not an owner and all dentist/doctors are usually associates first) was Sloan.  Sloan couldn't have been more than 5 years older than me and by the time Brad worked for him was a very successful dentist who owned his own practice in a stand alone building that he also owned.  This is the epitome of success for a dentist, or at least we thought so at the time.  We had a lot in common with him.  He was LDS like us, had 5 kids like us (even the same genders....4 boys, 1 girl), loved to lift weights, water-ski, dirt bike...and best of all, he was left handed just like Brad and so all his operatories were oriented correctly to do the best dentistry for a left hander (I could go on and on about how the world discriminates unknowingly against all those left handers here but I'll spare you the deatils and yes, I'm left handed).  The location of the practice was 3 hours from family for me and 1 hour from Costco!  It was an associateship match made in heaven.  Brad and Sloan became quick friends.  We rented a house from Sloan, dirt biked with Sloan, babysat Sloan's kids while he and his wife went to Honduras for a service vacation, etc., etc., etc...  Sloan was an even closer friend to Brad.  He invited Brad to lift weights with him every morning before work, which Brad did, and even extended an invitation to go on a special ski trip to Whistler with him that year.  Brad loved his associateship position there and he loved and appreciated Sloan.  You always know when someone has found a special place in Brad's heart because he'll start doing small acts of unknown service for them.  For example, Sloan had a door that wasn't latching or locking properly (I can't remember the details of which exactly) but one afternoon when Sloan was gone, Brad snuck over to Sloan's house and fixed his door.  Brad never told him and I don't know that Sloan even ever noticed.  Like I said, Brad really appreciated what Sloan was teaching him and the position he offered him in his office.

Associateships are hard though.  The statistic that Brad learned in dental school is that 90% of all associateships fail. Several things make them difficult.  The fact that when patients see them they aren't the doctor (i.e. it was Sloan's practice and every patient wanted Sloan, not Brad), staff loyalties to the owning doctor and jealousies of the associate doctor, production issues (who gets the garbage on the bottom and who gets the good procedures), money, sometimes wives become problems the list here could go on and on and on.  

Remember this associateship went swimmingly at the start.  It went so well that within 6 months Brad and Sloan were discussing a buy-in into the practice for Brad.  But somehow, when discussing the buy-in money and sharing the money got in the way.  It didn't change our relationship at the time but we could see that we were not going to end up partners with Sloan soon thereafter. 

So we began to look at our options.  As I mentioned before Costco was an hour away from our house.  What I didn't mention was where Costco was located was a city that I loved!  I strongly encouraged Brad to look here and we did!  I was so excited!  It was a perfect place to raise our kids.  Brad and I began to research what it would take to do a dental start-up here.  We went to a builders conference that built dental offices, we spoke with realtors and accountants, we found land and we applied and were approved for a loan to buy the land and build the practice!  We shared all this with Sloan and had a verbal agreement (after all who needs legal contracts amongst friends) that we would give him 3 months notice of when we would no longer be able to work for him and he had a reciprocal agreement that he would give us a 3 months notice if he needed to replace us before that time.  We even had a tentative date that we gave him of when the building was going to be completed.

While all the above mentioned was going on there were some issues that came up in the office.  Brad redid a filling on a patient in the same appointment because he didn't like the quality of the original filling he had placed, and well...that went bad.  Lesson learned, never strive for more excellent work when the patient is done sitting in the chair.  That's sounds like a harsh lesson to state to all you dental patients out there but trust me, sometimes B work makes the patient more pleased than A work if it takes too much time.  Newly graduated students have to learn this quickly or they will have no patients.  Please know that also, I believe that most dentists still always strive for A work, at least I know Brad does.  I digress.  Also, there were some staff loyalty issues for sure and a big run in with one staff member in particular who told Brad how to diagnose.  Um, just so you know, it is a big deal that the Doctor be the one to diagnose, legal issues you know.  Really though, we felt very safe and secure working for Sloan even with the associateship difficulties.  So ya technically, we were part of the 90% that didn't work out because it didn't lead to a partnership, but we were still friends and we were going to do our best for Sloan while working for him and he was going to do right by us.

One day, in August, we were sitting in church, a church we attended with Sloan, when it was announced that a new family had moved in.  The husband was a dentist and was going to be working with a local dentist in the ward.  Wow!  That was interesting because Sloan was the only dentist in the ward and Brad was the associate working for him.  Of course, we didn't want to jump to conclusions.  We were sure Sloan would have told us three months earlier if he was planning on letting Brad go.  We had a verbal agreement and he was Brad's friend.

That very afternoon Sloan came to our house for a visit and asked to speak with Brad.  At that time he informed him that, indeed, this new dentist, the newly moved in member or our church ward, was going to be working for him and gave Brad his two weeks notice.  I must have been eavesdropping.  My mind was reeling.  We were supposed to sign on the loan Bank of America had approved to start the purchase process on the land for the new dental office the very next day!  What if we had signed it on Friday?  It was August and all the new grads came out in May, what jobs would be left for associateships in August?  We had a verbal agreement with Sloan and Sloan was our friend.  He loved Brad and he loved our family.  Why wouldn't he have told us all this?  There were a lot of tears and worries that night of our now uncertain future.  It was indeed betrayal, most deep for Brad who implicitly loved, served and trusted Sloan but for all of our family too.  What were we to do now and how could we do it within two weeks?

It hurt deeply and it changed our lives forever.  

Betrayal rears its ugly head in many relationships.  It appears in business relationships like ours with Sloan.  It appears in friendships, familial relationships and marriages.  It is harmful and damaging and each one of us, in our attempt to live life to the fullest has been betrayed and has betrayed another.  That is one of our Open Secrets.

I recently read a book for the second time entitled End of the World Plan B by Charles Inouye, a professor at Tufts University.  In his book Dr. Inouye discusses the centuries old idea embraced by religions of the inevitable destruction of the earth. and our role in this destruction.  He explains how if we become too caught up in our demands for justice, it blinds us to our own imperfections and most certainly will end in the catastrophic apocalypse that has been foretold.  Then he presents another way, a plan B per se, to the end of the world.  He leans heavily on a teaching from Buddhism of a burning house.  We all live in a burning house and we don't know it until some event allows us to see the fire.  We leave the burning house and go out in pursuit of knowledge and seek justice as to who set this house on fire.  In our pursuit of this knowledge, we do learn about justice, of right and wrong, and we seek to hold others accountable.  This pursuit he equates to the climbing of a mountain.  It is hard and arduous but necessary to further ourselves from the burning house.  However, the further and further we get into our journey of seeking justice and holding people accountable for the burning house, the more we see that we too are guilty of  creating the fire (imagine Billy Joel's song "We didn't start the fire" playing in the background here please and me telling Mr. Joel, "oh, but we did start the fire", maybe that was his point?).  We have caused it.  And it causes us pain.  It causes us so much pain that we want to turn around and not ascend to the enlightenment that awaits us if we just persist in our summiting of this mountain.   Have any of you summited a mountain?  Let me tell you, it is painful and arduous to get to the top.  When Brad helped me summit Silver this summer we would take twenty steps and rest, then twenty more and rest and on and on until we did summit.  Summiting is painful.  If we continue on this allegorical journey we are on climbing up this mountain and unabashedly look at the nakedness of our ugly selves it leads us to mercy and compassion for others.  We see that we not only have we been oppressed, have been betrayed, but unknowingly (or knowingly) we too have been the oppressor or the betrayer. There is no escaping harming others when you live life even though you may have the best intentions to do so.  Let me pause here to share another story from my life to help you understand this point more broadly.

While I was serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I taught several families from Bolivia.  The Bolivians in Argentina are VERY poor and VERY discriminated against.  Anyhow, one particular family asked us to come teach them at their work place.  We went to teach them and the address had us arrive at a big empty factory where there were several Bolivian families sewing Sponge Bob Square Pants boxer shorts (at least I think they were Sponge Bob...don't quote me on that was Sponge Bob in the late 90s?).  It was the first time I had seen a literal sweat factory.  I asked the mother how much they were paid for each short.  "Un centavo" she answered me.  One penny per short.  Wow!  My mind was reeling at the unjustness of it all.  I was also realizing that these shorts, were being sold to me in America.  I was the buyer.  Worse yet, I had to be because we needed to buy the least expensive clothing because we had to spend our resources well.  We were a large family living off of a teacher's salary.  I was supporting this abuse of treatment unknowingly and out of necessity.  It was the first time I was able to look at my naked self.  Even more complicating to all this is that if we shut down that factory because of the abuse suffered there, these Bolivians are then without a job so we have to be careful in our advocacy for them.  We have to do it in the right way.  That's another topic for another day.  My point from this story is that for the first time, I saw that I was one contributing to the burning of the house.

Back to the burning house of Dr. Inouye.  When we understand that we too have been the oppressors we have mercy on those who have oppressed.  This painful process leads us to the summit, or to enlightenment where we realize that we are in need of being saved just as much as the others who need us to extend salvation to them through forgiveness.  I need forgiveness from you and you, in turn, need forgiveness from me.  He then says when we come to this enlightenment, we are able to descend down to the mountain back to the burning house to save others.

This book has such meaning for me in a time when I feel "naked" in the garden I once enjoyed living in.  It gives me hope for humanity that we all can come together even though we have been betrayed and have been the betrayer.

Admitting our guilt in this all is difficult.  Yes, Sloan betrayed us but we, my family did our share of betraying others.  Just ask Dr. Kent what he thinks of the Belts.  Yes, that is the doctor that we had a verbal agreement with to work for in Casper, Wyoming.  He did so much for us and was so gracious and would have treated us like kings. It might have been that rare 10% of associateships that would have worked out.  However, when we got scared for one reason or another, we fled.  We betrayed Dr. Kent.

What is my purpose in writing this all?  I am seeking healing.  You are too.  It doesn't matter where...in your business, in your family, in your politics, in your marriage...you are seeking the healing.  We are the ones in need of salvation and we are the only ones that can extend that same salvation to others.  It's up to you and me to make End of the World Plan B happen.