How far do I reach?
By Dr. Selim Erhan, TLT Editor November 2026
Extending the extra effort professionally gives personal satisfaction and other benefits.
My experience has shown me to reach as far as possible. In fact, do not wait until one is in a situation and decide how much to but actively plan on how to optimize your reach at various situations. You must be thinking about what I mean by reach and wonder, "reaching where?" I say for anything in everything we do.
At work extend the expected input, and do a bit more. The resulting improvements will pay back more than the leisure time we could have spent otherwise. Of course, I do not mean to work 10 hours instead of eight. I strongly believe that to have a healthy life we need a good balance between our spiritual life, self-maintenance, family time, social activities and environmental mindfulness. For this we can rest and sleep for eight, spend time on meaningful activities for eight and work for eight hours. This way our conscious is clear, our body and mind in optimum working condition, everyone around us that helps us reach a happy life is nourished and our profession gets an energetic input. In any of these activities if we set our mind to do a bit more in their allocated times, we will be richly rewarded with peace of mind.
Let us take our professional life for example. We acquire a steadily increasing amount of knowledge and expertise. Why not get involved in professional societies where we can pass this knowledge to younger members? Help with activities such as bringing colleagues together, help with arranging conferences where information and friendship are widely shared. The time and effort that I have put into these activities has brought so much joy, satisfaction and the friendship of like-minded wonderful people. Each one of these people provided an admirable number of skills that would be beyond my imagination if I had not worked together with them. These people were also practicing the extra reach for their careers and colleagues. Together everyone motivates each other. Committee meetings or preparing an event in our area of interest brings a warm glow of satisfaction. In projects at work if one puts in a little more heart in the report or experiment, or the meeting they are conducting, the resulting rewarding feeling keeps enriching us.
Of course, at times there are jealousies, plots and schemes that destroy some of our efforts but that does not matter. The person we live with, 24/7, is ourselves. If one is happy with what is done, and we cannot cheat our souls, we are content even if we are blocked.
There are also examples of rewards that come much later. I had read about such a reward in Winston Churchill's life. Churchill's father, a wealthy lord, had received some help from a farmer during a trip to Scotland. In return he offered to educate the son of the farmer, which the farmer accepted. This child, Alexander Fleming, grew up to be a famous scientist, who found that a mold called
Penicillium notatum, which had accidentally contaminated a Petri dish of
Staphylococcus bacteria, killed the surrounding bacteria. Together with other scientists Howard Florey, Ernst Boris Chain and Norman Heatley, they successfully purified penicillin and developed it into a life-saving medication. One of the lives they helped save was the life of Sir Winston Churchill, the son of the lord that educated farmer Fleming's son!
What started with a little bit of extra effort from the participants in events brought priceless rewards. I am sure there are countless examples where good deeds are paid back with great profit.
No one is immune to issues, such as loss of jobs, accidents, diseases, pollution and destruction by mostly man-made events. A bit of extra effort to maintain a healthy, peaceful, productive environment will pave the road that brings us solution providers at the hour of our need.
Dr. Selim Erhan is the president of Erbur Solutions in Trout Valley, Ill. You can reach him at selim.erhan@outlook.com.