Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Physician Wellness & Life Design”
A wrecking ball wreaks havoc and leaves a trail of destruction in its wake. A bulldozer, in contrast, plows straight ahead flattening all obstacles that lie in its path. In my enthusiasms, I have been accused of being a bulldozer. When I get excited about something, I talk it over with friends and family. I ask my most valued advisors …
I think it was my wife who introduced me to a uniquely useful definition of aging: accepting the formerly intolerable. This phrase was front and center in my mind as I went through a recent roller coaster ride on a real estate deal, one where each new twist and turn revealed an additional cost, a worse than anticipated interest rate, …
Years ago, I read Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. One of the most striking concepts in the book was what one of the top engineers at Apple called the reality distortion field, a Trekkie term co-opted to describe how Jobs made the impossible seem plausible to those in his immediate vicinity and overcame their objections to reach unlikely outcomes. …
COVID seems like such a weird way to spend a childhood…except for all the other ways. Solitary, sure. Antisocial, of course. But weird is a relative term. I was thinking back to the music videos that defined my childhood in the 1980s, and I couldn’t help but be struck by how weird it all seems in retrospect. Take an artist …
It was the early 1980s, and we were eleven years old. She and her identical twin sister had been classmates for several years, teasing presences with ponytails and impish grins. In the novel marinade of hormones that flavored my outlook on absolutely everything, I began to notice her. She was my first crush. Years later I would discover a forgotten …
Yet another lesson gleaned from the Master Class by Doris Kearns Goodwin explored how great leaders dealt with putting aside awkward interpersonal dynamics in the name of pursuing the greater good. Explicitly highlighted was Abraham Lincoln. One example provided was Lincoln’s selection of Edwin Stanton to serve as his Secretary of War. Years earlier, Stanton had humiliated Lincoln. In 1855, …
In the past week, there have been two deaths within my circle of friends, one of a friend’s parent, one of a friend’s child. There is grief paired with the sense that I am getting off easy. I was speaking to a mentor, a retired internist who pioneered palliative care at the academic institution where I trained decades ago. His …
I spend a decent amount of time envisioning what I’d like my future to resemble, sometimes (unfortunately) to the point where the pondering excessively delays the enacting of said future. I begin by distinguishing between needs and wants. Being a dirtbag at heart, the needs are few. Next I factor in how I’ll need to modify my needs to meet …
I’ve mentioned previously that a friend gifted me a subscription to Master Class, an online video lecture series where interesting / prominent / famous / accomplished individuals are give the opportunity to teach their craft. So far I’ve enjoyed learning negotiation skills from Chris Voss, a former FBI hostage negotiator, as well as creativity, comedy and screenwriting process from Judd …
My mom is one of the bravest adults I’ve ever met because she is unafraid to be a curious novice. She retired from over three decades of teaching kindergartners, retaining the same sense of wonder and delight in exploration that characterized her students. As a result, she has experienced retirement as an embarrassment of riches in adult education. Her typical …