Go from burnt out to FIREd up.
[A friend – let’s call him Mr. 20K – graciously acceded to write the guest post below after a conversation about his unusual frame of reference piqued my curiosity. I hope you’ll savor his thoughts and ruminations as much as I did.] I was catching up on some Crispy Doc the other day and enjoyed a post on his recent …
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 …
A friend reached out to check in on me, and I confessed I’d been having stress dreams for the first time in many months due to the pandemic. He invited me to nightly online meditation he leads. I’ve never participated in anything like this, but I know and trust this friend, so I accepted his generous offer. There was a …
I am an emergency physician, a member of a specialty whose foundation requires a complete renunciation of routine. It’s one of the vows we take before they teach us the secret handshake. No week can be reliably expected to be like any other before or after it. [The only exception: You will inevitably encounter a patient allergic to every analgesic …
In my high school and college dating days, forty year old inner me would gaze out from behind a young body subject to that young body’s impulses and drives, and ask plainly: Would I want to share custody and responsibility for a child with the person across from me? That assessment, uncommonly sober among my peers in their teens and …
Birthday morning – I’m up before the house at 6:30 am, take my morning constitutional, and then it’s out the door by 7am to catch the tail end of the most recent winter swell. The water is frigid. There are only three surfers and a guy on a surfski spread far apart along the sandy shorebreak as several 3-4 foot …
Humans are curious creatures. We like to regard ourselves as being internally consistent while the reality is far messier. For evidence, look no further than our investments. Or as the artist formerly known as Dr. Moneyblogs is fond of quoting: Don’t tell me what you think. Tell me what you have in your portfolio. -Nassim Nicholas Taleb Many personal finance …
I show up for the morning “hot zone” shift and check in with the lead nurse in the ED. Of 60 potential clinical spaces (accounting for every gurney, chair, and our fast track area), 29 are occupied by boarders – patients admitted to the hospital who remain in the ED either because there are insufficient beds upstairs in the hospital …