Been talking a lot recently about fractured living: the act of rejecting your dream out of fear, which separates you from yourself. How I dealt with fractured living, what that process looked like, and how I made the leap to the other side, is the subject at hand. To illustrate, I’m borrowing Cheryl Strayed’s ship analogy from Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar (highly recommended read).
Our life is a ship, sailing through the seas of experience. When we make a decision of consequence, our mind creates a parallel “other ship” sailing alongside—a means to keep alive our “what if”s and “could’ve been”s. No matter where we sail, if in fractured living, the “other ship” follows.
My choice to enter medical school launched an “other ship”. I observed it daily; wondering, imagining, and wishing it were my ship.
For a time, the ships (and my two lives) were so close together I could walk between them. A choice was made, but with minimal consequence, could be walked back. This period was likely my first semester of medical school. I had low debt, was still close enough to who I had been, and my dreams were similar.
Yet, time went on, seasons changed, and the ships divorced. How I managed the fracture is best described in phases.
Phase I – Teleportation
For many years, a magical belief held sway in my heart: if I summon the courage to quit medicine, I’ll be right back on the “other ship”. When I chose medical school, not wanting it, my mind kept a fictional trump card available, like a DVR rewind function. It permitted ignorance of the time invested and autonomy sacrificed. But as in war, ground conceded is clawed back in blood. And it doesn’t happen with a wave of the wand.
Yet, I wasn’t interested in truth, unable to recognize that the person who got me onto this present boat was the person I was trying to time travel back toward. No, all I wanted was off the ship.
Phase II – Destruction
Demoralized by empty fantasy, I tried to burn my ship to ashes. Beating myself up, calling myself a coward, and screaming in my car, all were common here. Depression was the result. I circled in this state from third year of medical school through intern year. It was a miserable phase but necessary. Many get stuck in the ‘burning down the boat’ phase.
Phase III – Mourning
With the help of my therapist, family, and friends, I began to process what was lost: time, opportunity, and identity. It was ugly and hard. Across years on a boat, I didn’t wish to be on, much passed for which I was not present. The boat had permanently set sail, never to be boarded again.
Through the mourning, I learned. This is where I began to understand why I made the choices I did and how I arrived here. This is where I forgave myself. My sightline elevated enough over the bow to see where I was going.
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Phase IV – Churning
Medicine was not for me, this much I knew, but where to go next and what to do, remained intangible. I became enamored with the question, “What am I going to do?”, which became an external Easter egg hunt. I researched alternative careers for physicians outside medicine, and dug around for specific job openings, all the while looking for the “perfect plan”. Instead of reading the maps aboard my ship and getting the compass dialed, I was looking again for another ship!
My therapist introduced emotional alchemy. There was use for all the frustrated angst; it was in churning. Butter needs to be churned and worked, as does life, otherwise we’re just waiting on deliverance. You do not wake up with butter. You churn your ass off for it.
What did this look like? Well, I knew two things about myself: I love the outdoors, and I love writing. In the mornings, I got up early and went outside. Every day for sunrise. I came back in and journaled. Then I would read a book aimed toward the life I wanted. I went to work and took care of my patients. On the drive home I loaded a podcast with the same aim of self-improvement. Over the weekend, instead of sitting around trying to figure out the perfect way out, I went to lunch with friends and brainstormed, then surfed. Rinse and repeat, week after week.
What happened was a slow crystallization of a vision, like butter, and once again I arrived back at the helm, steering one moment at a time toward a life I loved. When those perfectionisms arrived, like “What am I going to do?”, I redirected myself back to the horizon with wheel in hand and focused on steering around the next iceberg. Although not what I wanted, residency became manageable because I understood that I was doing something, finally, to improve my situation. Control had shifted internally. No more obsessive searching for other boats.
Churning led to a cascade of choices that steered my ship into its current bay. I am here now not due to epiphany, but the slow and steady accumulation of present choices and intention to improve my life.
There will never be a perfect ship for us, only a loosely gripped helm, clear vision, and willingness to traverse any condition on this boat.
Keep your eye on the horizon and the wind at your back. If you come about, remember to “trim” for the tack. Sounds like you have things working for you in a way that most will never achieve.
I had a job once that made lots of money. It was a serious wake up call to realize that it wasn’t making me happy.
Much needed perspective here and additions to my ship analogy! Thank you. Gotta keep the eyes up!