On the day of this website’s birth, I went to surf. I always surfed when things got tight, and that day… was tight. That morning, publicly, I had notified family and friends of my exit from medicine (by launching the website). As a result, my phone queued with, “Dude, I’m happy for you… but are you okay?” messages. I was overwhelmed; and to escape my mid-life crisis realities, I needed to surf. Bad.
Pulling up to my spot, I thought it strange no one was in the ocean. Aside from a dozen pelicans in the lineup, wave after wave of three-foot perfection went by vacant like empty train cars. I parked my truck, readying for solo surfing bliss, when it occurred to me why the lineup was apocalyptic (save the pelicans); it had rained. Shit, I forgot about the morning’s storm. I considered paddling out anyway but remembered the last time I treaded bacterial waters after a storm—and developed a corneal ulcer in my right eye.
So, I plopped down on my tailgate and watched the pelicans bob through wave after wave of perfection. My phone rang. Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz. I debated not answering, but after years of hospital pages embedded as reflex, I checked to see who it was. Huh, it was my former life coach, Ben. (For those keeping track at home, I once had a therapist and a life coach. It was a big job.)
“Hey man, how the hell are ya?” I said, pretending all was good. Just another day among normal days.
“So, you did it huh?” Ben said, skipping normality. “I’m happy for you, really, but you know the hard part’s coming, right?”
I didn’t care to hear it, hoping after-medicine Santa Claus would work the details out. But as the conversation wore my illusions down, I listened. Plus, I trusted him. Ben and I were classmates in medical school. He left residency after two years—different circumstances than my own—and found a way to survive in the after-medicine wilderness. To me, he was Bear Grylls. He led coaching programs for burned out healthcare professionals, which I’d completed a year prior, with him.
His point that stuck was patience; it had taken him a year after leaving to unwind the stress response from medical school and residency. You can take the man out of medicine, but you can’t take the medicine out of the man, he was saying. At least for a year. Actively, he had to relearn how to work in a healthy manner. To not grind, all the time, in soul-sucking fashion.
His point only resonated, yesterday.
Last night I went to a poetry reading with my wife. It was the first such attendance of my life. A neighbor and I got to talking about writing, and through various backchannels, I was invited to the event. There would be literature, beer, and wine, hosted in a retro thrift shop.
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All day yesterday, I was claustrophobic. Having something scheduled at night meant stress added on top of a day’s work. I don’t have the space for this, my default settings reminded. I woke up thinking about the tasks before, the tasks after, and how I was going to grind my way through it. Just get to tomorrow.
Midway through the day’s slog, while eating a sandwich, I thought about Ben’s experience. Did I have to grind today? Really? There was choice here. I could mindlessly stay on autopilot and grind, or… enjoy the day? Wait, is it okay to enjoy things again?
I remembered something important: I actually wanted to go to this. I actually wanted to work on furniture before. I actually wanted to enjoy myself, not just survive the day—at the thought of it being over—but enjoy it for what it was. And meet some people. Hang out. Be myself. Grow.
So that’s what I did. My wife and I enjoyed the reading and a beer, seeing our community from a new angle. It was the kind of night, altogether normal, that I sorely missed over the past few years, as I survived and grinded days. As I forgot that it was okay to just be okay… and to even be happy. It was the kind of night Ben said would come, in time, if I chose it.
From eight years of inauthenticity, I learned 32 lessons I’ll never forget. Get the whole list today by joining my weekly newsletter, HERE.