Recently, I caught up on the writing of a fellow physician finance blogger, Dr. Cory Fawcett at Financial Success MD. Cory is a “repurposed” surgeon who reinvented his career after leaving medicine in his early 50s to become an author, coach and financial blogger. I admire him for forging this encore career. When his youngest son had an unexpected window of …
Out Of Sequence
Bidding my daughter good night recently, I played her an album of Icelandic alternative rock (Sigur Ros) that I haven’t listened to for years. The songs were orchestral, a little abrasive to listen to, but they built on one another through their arrangement. It got me thinking (in the digressive manner I increasingly relish with age) about order. I was …
Superpowers Beget Superpowers
Because I am a dirtbag by nature, I did not need to spend a lot of money to enjoy the things I valued during and after residency and fellowship. As an attending, I rented an apartment, drove a beater, and continued to travel like the budget backpacker I’ve always been. [I’m still that guy. An older friend recently retired, and …
An Unexpected Legacy For The Fruit Of My Loins (2 of 2)
[This is Part 2 of 2. Please find Part 1 here.] When we last checked in, I was a high school student enjoying the benefits of participation in theater arts and music. The value can best be described as a combination of eventual self-confidence that comes with repeat public performances compounded by the comfort in one’s skin that comes with …
An Unexpected Legacy For The Fruit Of My Loins (1 of 2)
I was a teenage Madrigal. That was the name of the highly competitive coed singing group I belonged to in high school. (I was also a member of another, less selective group, the Royal Knights. The entry requirements for that group were a pulse and a Y chromosome). The competition to join singing groups at our high school was cutthroat …
The Accumulation of Marginal Choices
A couple of mornings ago, as I took a final sip of my daily espresso, I noticed the dishwasher was full of clean dishes. I was thrust into the position of making a small but telling decision. Why does my reaction to a dishwasher full of clean dishes translate into a referendum on my character? For much the same reason …
Stuff
We have always been a family of collectors. When we were young, and traveled to Mexico frequently to visit family, my dad took great pleasure in bargaining with street vendors for “ironwood” carvings. My parents’ home has approximately twenty such carvings – display shelves full of multiple copies of graceful sea turtles, sleek dolphins, curved seals and numerous other creatures …
I Gave Up Half My Income For These Five Minutes
This weekend my teen daughter was honored with an invitation to sing at a morning service at our place of worship. It was an honor few kids are offered, and she enthusiastically accepted this call to serve. A weekend service typically runs 2.5 hours. I identify and affiliate with my community and find it a source of comfort and connectedness, …
The Long Goodbye
The biggest investment I made over of the last couple of years was in being present for the end of my father’s life and helping my parents plan for his death. Dad survived a diagnosis of lymphoma in his late 20s, fortunate that the era heralded some of the first truly effective treatments for that disease. One major treatment component …
New Ages and Stages
Plenty has changed in my household while I was away from blogging. The kids are now young adults, and the focus of their development has shifted accordingly. One of the lenses that has been most helpful in viewing the kids’ development is that provided by the psychologist Erik Erikson. I was first exposed to his theories as an undergraduate Human …