When You’re Stuck, Do This

A year ago I realized the gig was up. Was I going to quit medicine then? No chance, but the sinking realization was slowly becoming objective reality: this isn’t going to work. I’d seen enough to know. If I were to live a happy and purposeful life, I had to do something else and figure it out soon. But where should I start?

I have learned a critical truth; almost all realizations in my life have come when outside and quiet. Do not bring your iPhone. Do not bring a book. If it may end up in your hand directing your eyes downward, do not bring it.

Hence, if you feel stuck like I did and not knowing where to turn, get outside daily and trust the process.  

Here’s a story that illustrates the point.

One Saturday afternoon last February, my friend John and I were walking down the sidewalk in Laguna Beach, catching up after a few years. His wife and son were popping in and out of shops, and mirroring the pattern ourselves, we popped in and out of existential life questions. I was finishing a cup of chocolate chip cookie dough gelato, undeterred by the sugar rush headache, when the conversation stumbled into my physician ambivalence. He was a friend I felt comfortable discussing the topic with, as he had left the security of a society approved profession and launched a small business, successfully. He walked the talk, and his opinions were valuable. I told him I was done with medicine but had no idea what to do next.

After drinking the final melted drops of his own $11 scoop of gelato, he offered specific advice, “If I were you, I’d get real quiet.” I understood what he meant. If I were to build a path out of this, I had to sense what I wanted and only in stillness can you do that. Seemed like a reason to go camping.

I searched for a campsite, locating an opening near Jamul, a small town about 30 minutes east of San Diego on a property bordering the Cleveland National Forest. A two-hour drive from Orange County, it was far enough to feel like a trip. The surrounding mountains were beautiful in pictures, and it was incredibly isolated. Perfect, I thought while clicking, ‘Book Now’.

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I love the high desert. Everything about it clicks: dry air, sandy soil, and plants battling for survival with scant water. I could already smell the coastal sagebrush as drove down the 5.  

I arrived an hour before dusk. Campsite situated and dinner prepped, I departed on a hike into the hills as the sun tucked itself in, can of 805 in my back pocket. Darkness descended but no realizations came. Guess I was expecting to feel what Natasha Bedingfield sings about in Unwritten. All I got was the sound of gravel under my boots and a buzz decent enough to spark an appetite.  

After dinner I stared into a roaring, four-log fire and drank a few more 805s. No clarity came. Temperatures in the high thirties and the winds refusing to die down, I phoned it in and went to bed.  

My tent was pitched atop a crest, boasting panoramic ridgelines in the daylight. At night, it felt like a lofted bunker under siege from unknown enemies. I felt exposed. As I lay there in the tent alone, positively not sleeping, waves of obliteration inspired fear close to a panic attack. It was that scared shitless feeling I’ve always had when outdoors by myself. I felt very small and very alone.

Then, a voice—my voice—rose from within, saying sternly, “No, I will not live like this. I got this.” And the fears dissipated. I slept like a baby the rest of the night.

The answer, the path, the knowing, the epiphany, was me. By getting quiet, my fears of isolation and obliteration at leaving medicine rose to the surface, where I got the chance to respond. It was a step closer to autonomous living. In getting quiet outdoors, it vaulted into awareness the conflict I’d been wrestling with in my day-to-day life and a pivotal response. While not a guarantee, I don’t think Netflix would have produced the same experience.

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You don’t need to go camping. I’ve had similar insights while walking in my neighborhood at night. The next right step often occurred when I wasn’t trying to find it, but when I was just outside enjoying what was around me, like soaking up a clear view of the Big Dipper over a neighborhood trees. We need time to get to know ourselves, our fears, and our wants. And it took a whole bunch of these next right steps for me to get where I am now.  

Thus, if you’re stuck, get quiet and get outside. Make it a habit and build time for it. Take a walk. Drive to the beach and sit on a bench. Gaze out at the empty field behind your backyard.

Then do it again, damn the results. Trust in the daily repetition of being a part of something bigger than yourself, which seems to help in finding… yourself.