The demons were after me hard this week. When I say demons, I mean doubt and resistance . All from within. Perhaps inspired by a sobering after-holidays clarity or the inevitable emotional crash from the launch of this venture, they were there, and I thought a lot about why I am doing this.
This headspace prompted Monday’s article, A Report from the After-Medicine Wilderness. Since I first heard it (if you know the actual source, email it my way), a story and its imagery has stuck with me. A boy and his father are cast into a hellscape, where all the light in the world has been vanquished, except for a small torch that the boy carries. If the boy can manage to keep the torch aflame, across obstacles with the support of his father, the world has a shot at illumination. Each day over the past few years was about keeping my pilot light lit. Most days, that’s all I could manage, until I had a fire sufficient to get out of the woods. Turns out, I need to keep throwing logs on the fire.
I’ve been attempting video production. This is hard and time-intensive. Last weekend I posted a Book of the Weekend video, telling my wife it would take 15 minutes, then I’d help around the house. An hour and a half later, I discovered my marriage requires more efficiency. Video production will be happening during the week from here forward.
Perfectionism runs deeper than the Grand Canyon in me, but I’ve managed to peak outside the upper rim in the last year. I had an insight playing softball here in Santa Barbara, that while seemingly common sense, had never occurred to me before that moment. Ultimately, it helped me understand the whole point of this thing, which I tried to get across in yesterday’s The Game That Led Me Out of Medicine.
I am grateful to have a shot at figuring this out. The act of trying every day feels better than what I was doing a year ago, which is a good place to be.
I am all ears for article ideas or feedback on my content. It’s been awesome so far.
To keeping the torch lit,
Ryan Fightmaster, MD
Book of the Weekend
Close to every day for the past year I have read The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday. Great gift Mom! Time and time again I went here for guidance and perspective before I made the choice to pursue a calling. Each day has an individual passage from a Stoic philosopher, then author Ryan Holiday expands on the prompt, taking a minute to read each day’s message. Couldn’t recommend it more!