Weekend Progress

Remember how my living room looked on Friday?

This is how it looks at the end of the weekend:

The after photo doesn't quite do it justice, as everything that is currently on the table is waiting for someone to pick it up and take it away.  There will be a lot of empty space once it's finally done.  Including space for games nights!

A few more before and afters:

The desk:

The bookshelf:

The light in the photos is terrible, but you get the idea.  I have gotten rid of a lot of clutter.  So far I think I've done a reasonable job of not getting rid of important things, with two notable exceptions.  First, I gave away some chargers that I thought were old and not in use anymore, but which turned out to be for my bike lights.  So I'll need to get a new charger before bike season next year*.  And second, I gave away a tea set to one of my friends, and a few hours later, she texted me to say "You didn't look in the teapot before you gave it to me, did you?"

Turns out I had stashed $130 in cash in it at some point in the past.  (Years and years ago, perhaps?)  I'm really glad I gave that one to a friend instead of putting it in the lobby of my building.

Anyone else decluttering right now?  How is it going?

*Also a new bike, as I had previously been using the ex-girlfriend's bike.  Sigh.

One Year in the Black

It has been just over one year since I reached a net worth of zero.  After being in debt for almost ten years, it has been a welcome change to open the Excel file in which I track everything financial and see that my investments finally exceed the balance on my line of credit.

As a medical student and resident, I hadn't thought much about finances.  I was surrounded by people who came from wealthy families, and it didn't take me long to adopt their spendy habits and to accumulate a lot of debt.  I reassured myself that "everyone was doing it" and that the debt was okay, because it would be easily repayed once I became a physician and started getting paid in bags full of money.  I rarely looked at the balance of my line of credit, and whenever I did it was just a quick glance, followed by a nervous chuckle at the ridiculousness of owing the bank such an enormous sum.

It wasn't until my last year of fellowship that I actually woke up to the reality of how much money I owed and started doing something about it.  I went on a budget, and I actually started spending less than I was earning for the first time in eight years.  I didn't save a lot of money in that year, as it was a major adjustment just to start living within my means, but at the very least I laid some groundwork for financial responsibility as an attending.

And then I finished training!  And got an adult job!  And suddenly there was a lot of extra money to put towards savings and debt repayment.  Every day that I worked, I got a little bit closer to the longed for balance of zero.  And yet, my anxiety about money actually got worse.  When my line of credit was ridiculously big, I comforted myself by saying that I could declare bankruptcy if I ever lost my job*, because there was no way I could pay it back on anything other than a physician's salary.  As it got smaller, and my investments bigger, I suddenly entered territory where I would be expected to pay back my loans, regardless of whether I could continue to work as a physician.  And the idea of earning a non-physicians salary but still being $50,000 or $60,000 in debt was terrifying.

Thankfully, I have kept my job, and after ten months of working and saving I got myself back into the black.  I expected that the anxiety about money would resolve instantaneously after achieving that milestone, but oddly enough I didn't take a lot of comfort in being a 39-year old with a net worth of zero.  I still felt vulnerable to the possibility of becoming disabled** or burning out of my career and not having enough money to have good options.  So I kept saving and repaying debt and watching my net worth get healthier and healthier.

In the past year, I've increased my net worth by enough that I could live at my current standard of living for about three years.  While I hesitate to share actual numbers here, I will say that my net work growth breaks down roughly as follows:  10% from growth on investments; 10% line of credit repayment; 30% cash savings (for a down payment on our first home); and 50% long-term savings (RRSPs and a TFSA to minimize taxes). 

My savings vary a lot from month to month, due to a fluctuating call schedule and taking time off work for vacations and conferences, but the overall trajectory of my net worth has been pleasantly positive.  And finally...FINALLY...I am starting to relax a little.  It is comforting to know that I could become disabled and live comfortably off my disability insurance payments.  Or I could burn out from medicine and pursue a different career, and I would be absolutely fine.  For the first time in a decade, I feel like I have some real security and real options.  I'm still a long way from financial independence, but at least I'm sleeping more peacefully at night.

*I only had private student loans, so I think they would have been cancelled out by a bankruptcy.  But don't quote me on that.  And don't be an idiot like me and think that bankruptcy is a good financial strategy!

**Yes, I have disability insurance.  As should every physician.

Ignoring Money

As a medical trainee, I pretty much ignored my finances.  Having been a disciplined saver of at least 10% of my earnings since I turned 18, it was depressing to watch my savings first disappear and then turn into a six-figure debt.  So I didn't.  I stopped looking at my bank account, I stopped filing my taxes*, and I essentially pretended that money didn't exist.

I existed in this world of willful ignorance for eight years, until a scare at work made me question whether I was going to get to be a doctor.  Suddenly the debt that I had thought would be easy to repay grew monstrous, as I imagined paying it off without a physician's salary.  So I started paying attention.  And budgeting.  And slowly I got myself to a point where my net worth went up a bit every month.

And then I got my adult job.  And suddenly my net worth was going up a lot every month.  Within 10 months of starting as an attending, I had saved enough money to repay my debt.  It felt pretty awesome.  But it also felt pretty obsessive.  Every day when I came home from work, I would check my bank balance and my credit card balance and my payment owed balance to figure out how much I was worth.

Every single day.

It got to the point that I was attaching too much of my self worth and feelings of security/insecurity to a single number.  On days when I'd have a good clinic (or, even better, have a good clinic and be on call), I'd feel happy, confident that I was moving towards a future of security and happiness.  On days when I'd pay my rent or my car insurance, however, I'd be miserable.  Any downward movement in my net worth felt like a failure.

So I stopped looking.

For all of October, I kept my net worth file closed and simply ignored it.  I kept tracking my earnings and my spending, and I must admit that I tried to mentally estimate my net worth a few times, but I didn't check my net worth obsessively.  And it felt so much better.  I didn't get angry at patients who failed to show to clinic, viewing them as a lost revenue stream.  I didn't get upset when I had to, or chose to, spend money.  I knew that, regardless of what was happening day to day, overall my net worth was going in the right direction.

I was going to be fine.

Ironically, October had the second biggest net worth increase of any month since I started working.  This was in no way related to my behaviour, and in every way related to the 15 days of call that I worked, but it was still really comforting to know that I could let go of my hypervigilance about money, and it would still be okay.

Now that October is over, and I can check my net worth as often as my heart desires, I'm trying hard to not fall back into my old patterns.  I don't want my happiness to be tied to money.  I don't want to be anxious on the days when my spending exceeds my earnings - which is every single weekend day.  I don't want to be constantly comparing myself to all the personal finance bloggers and feeling inadequate.  I want my money to be in the background, slowly growing, while my much more exciting and fulfilling life goes on in the foreground.

*This is a really, really dumb thing to do. 

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Wondering what my November goal is?  ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.  I'm feeling burnt out at the moment, and all I can think about is spending four days this weekend at a cabin with my girlfriend.  And books.  And nachos!

Self improvement will have to wait for December.

Movement - September Goal

Oh exercise, how I struggle with you.  With just a quick look through the blog, it's easy to find multiple posts in which I'm either committing to exercising more or lamenting the fact that I've failed at exercising more (see here, here, here, here, and here for just a few examples).  It's not a habit that comes easily to me.

The problem, for me, is that there are so many things that I would rather being doing than exercising.  Reading, blogging, cuddling with my cats and/or girlfriend, eating out, cooking at home, etc. etc.  There is no shortage of things that I want to do, and it is always difficult to say no to them in order to do something that doesn't really appeal to me.

But I know I need to.  For my stress level, for my health, for my happiness.  Everything is better when I get exercise.  So this month, I set myself the goal of exercising three times a week.  I didn't set any specific requirements for how long or what type of exercise or anything else, I simply had to move.  And I'm happy to report that I was almost perfect.  In the entire month, I only missed one workout, and that was due to the fact that I had such bad sciatic pain that I could barely walk.

In addition to working on the habit, I wanted to observe myself and figure out what helped me/hindered me when it came to exercise.  I want to better understand why I've failed in the past so that hopefully I can do better at making this a lifelong habit.  If nothing else, it will be much more interesting for the blog if I can set a monthly goal for myself that isn't exercising!  Here's what I learned over the past month:

Variety:  I've tried in the past to just run on the treadmill in my building three times per week, and it gets boring very quickly.  (Not to mention the bloody sciatic pain.  My borderline obese body was not designed for running.)  This time I've been trying to do more variety - walking outside, yoga classes, aerobics classes, elliptical - and it's definitely easier to stay motivated.

Planning:  I do much better if I sit down at the beginning of the week and plan out my exercise than if I just try to wing it.  Not surprisingly.  (I didn't promise that these would be profound observations, just observations.)

Changes in Schedule:  I have been aiming for a Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday exercise schedule, which is great when it works, but terrible if I happen to have an extra morning clinic or something else that interferes with my plans.  Going forward, I'm going to have to get better at dealing with the things that throw me off of my schedule.  (Case in point:  I have an 8 am lecture to attend tomorrow, combined with our local LGBTQ film festival in the evening, and I have no idea how to deal with it yet.)

Mood:  My mood has been vastly better over the past month than it has been in perhaps ever.  While I think the counseling and the improvements in my relationship have played a huge part, I certainly don't want to discount the role that exercise is probably playing.

So, for the first time in ever, let's call this month of exercising a success!

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As for October (quick comment before rushing off to Thanksgiving dinner #2), my goal is to not look at my net worth.  Not once.  I normally check it on a daily basis and think about it pretty obsessively, so going 31 days without looking at it is a big step for me.  But one that has been good so far, and one that I think is necessary for my happiness.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in Canada!  Hope you enjoy your turkey (or Aloo Gobi, which is how we're celebrating this year). 

So Many Things

You know how something happens and you think "I should blog about this", but then you don't have make the time to do it, and then something else happens that you want to blog about, but you can't because you still have to blog about the first thing, and then it happens over and over again until you have ten things you want to write about and you haven't blogged in almost a month?

Yeah.  That. 

So...because I can't decide which of the major life events I want to leave out of my blog post, and because no one wants to read a brief autobiography disguised as a blog post, here is the last month of my life in bullet points:

1. I got back together with my (no longer) ex-girlfriend.  After the breakup, I don't think I went more than four or five days without seeing M*, and I definitely didn't go that long without talking to her.  I missed her.  We started out doing the "we're spending all our time together but not dating" thing over a month ago, and we declared ourselves dating again a few weeks ago, and so far it seems to be going well.  We're doing our best not to repeat some of the mistakes we've made in the past, and it definitely makes for a healthier relationship.  We shall see where this goes...
2. My grandmother died.  My grandmother was 94, slightly senile, and diabetic, and yet I was convinced that she would live forever.  A few weeks ago, I got the call that she had had a heart attack and been made palliative, so I headed out to her small community as prepared as one ever is to say goodbye.  When I arrived at the hospital, she was asleep in her bed, but she quickly roused and demanded to be taken home.  By the time we got her back to the PCH, she was back to her usual feisty self, showing no signs of what had happened.  Unfortunately, a week later she fell and broke her hip (for the third time), and that was the beginning of a very rapid end.  My grandmother was the most resilient of the resilient Depression era farm women, and so it's still amazing to me that she's gone.  I still have moments when I feel guilty for not visiting her, so I don't think it's quite sunk in yet.
3. I decided what to do with my budget.  The comments on my previous blog post were fascinating to me!  It's interesting how everyone has their own unique way of being financially responsible, many of which are different from my own.  In the end, I realized that my current method of budgeting is actually working pretty well for me, except for the fact that the amount of money I was allowing myself didn't fit with the amount of income I was bringing in.  So, I threw $500 at the budget to get myself out of the black, and I increased the regular amount in my budget by 1/3.  Since the change, I have bought Threadless t-shirts and Happy Socks, taken a thankfully not sick cat for a very expensive vet visit, and booked a luxurious spa day for the long weekend.  So I'm over budget again.  But enjoying spending some of my hard earned money instead of just hoarding it in the event of future catastrophe.
4. I started counselling.  I wrote before about how I had seen a psychiatrist through a service at work, but what I've never written about was how abysmal the whole experience was.  I went in looking for some coping strategies and maybe some cognitive behavioural therapy for anxiety, but what I got was someone who wanted to put me on medication and explore all of the supposedly traumatic events from my childhood (um, no thanks).  It was a terrible match.  I put off looking for someone else until M and I got back together, and then I decided that I needed someone external to help me navigate the waters of rekindling an old relationship.  I've met with the counsellor once, and it seems like a better fit so far, so I'm hoping that something good will come out of it.
5. I started exercising again.  It has become abundantly obvious to me that everything is better when I exercise.  Not in a future oriented "I won't have a heart attack when I'm 50" kind of way, but in an "I'm less of a psycho hose beast when I exercise" kind of way.  Exercise is definitely good for my stress, my energy level, my sleep, and my all round happiness.  My goal for September, in fact, is to restart the habit of exercising three times a week.  It will likely consist of me running on the treadmill on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, as I have no clinics those mornings, and then doing something else on Saturdays or Sundays.  I may alternatively do an exercise class at work on Thursday afternoons, as there's one that starts after my work day ends.  This week I'm planning to go to yoga on Saturday morning, as my sciatic pain has flared up from the running**, but I may be more creative in the future.
6. I signed up for a meditation class.  This terrifies me.  I've been reading books about how wonderful meditation is (like 10% Happier and Full Catastrophe Living), and I'm fully convinced that it can make me a happier and more productive person, but I absolutely hate the idea of having to actually do it.  Sitting with nothing but my thoughts?  Breathing exercises?  Walking meditations?  All of that sounds terrible.  And yet, starting October 5 I will be doing it every Wednesday evening.  

And that is my life.  How is everyone else doing?

*I'm giving her an initial, because it's far too tedious to keep typing "the girlfriend" or "the ex-girlfriend" depending on my current relationship status.  Also my hands are sore from typing chart notes.

**When did I turn 80?

March/April Goals - Eat Food

Once again, I'm late with reflecting on last month's goals and setting out this month's goals.  Perhaps my goal for this month should be to be on time with my next post about goals?

Anyway...for March, I made a very vague commitment to "recognize what I need and to meet those needs".  I was feeling in a bit of a slump at the time, and I couldn't quite figure out what would make me feel better, so my goal was essentially an attempt to identify anything that would make me feel better and do it.  After a few days of self reflection, I realized that one of my biggest sources of unhappiness was feeling like I was spending all of my time doing the tedious parts of my job (dictating, editing dictations, reviewing labs) without ever being finished with it.  In response to this, I made it my priority to get all the stuff done, and I did.  (As I wrote about here).

In getting caught up on my work, and even more so in trying to prevent the work from reaccumulating, I have come to realize that I was making the fatal mistake of letting my work expand to fill the time available to me.  I'm usually in clinic only about 50% of the time, leaving me with more than enough time for office work when I'm not on call, and I was allowing the tedious work to unnecessarily fill up all of my non-clinic time.  I would come in a bit late, have a nice long coffee break, check Facebook, and do all kinds of things to procrastinate getting the work done because there wasn't a real urgency to doing it.  When I had another project to work on, such as a presentation with a firm deadline, then I would get more efficient at the tedious work to make time for the other project, but otherwise I was dawdling.  And feeling trapped in paperwork hell.

Forcing myself to finish my tedious work on a daily basis (as much as possible) has made me much more efficient.  I come in on time, I minimize non-work activities, and I use even the random five- or ten-minute chunks of available time between events to be productive.  There is absolutely no way that I want to stay later than I need to because I've been scrolling through Facebook instead of signing off on dictations.  By making much better use of my time, I've finally freed up some of the big chunks of time that I need for bigger projects.  Which feels awesome.

So, March goal?  Let's call it a success.

April Goal - Eat Food:

A lot of my time with patients is spent counseling them on living a healthy lifestyle.  Many of them hope that I hold a magical secret to living better, but in reality, my advice to them is always pretty basic:  Get exercise (30 minutes per time, 3-5 times per week).  Eat more healthy food (fruits, vegetables, lower-fat dairy, lower-fat meat/meat alternatives, whole-grain products).  Eat less unhealthy food (pop, chips, fast food, processed food, sugar).  Simple in theory, frustratingly difficult in practice.

After spending my days giving (what I think is) fundamentally sound advice, I unfortunately often go home and sit on my couch eating precisely the things I tell my patients not to.  I love pop.  And chocolate.  And ice cream.  And eating out in almost any restaurant, including the greasiest of greasy spoons.  I am an extraordinary hypocrite, and I know it's something I need to work on. 

About a week ago, my girlfriend and I watched an excellent documentary featuring Michael Pollan, an author who has written books about the problems with the industrial food system and with our current approach to eating healthily.  The documentary focuses around Pollan's simple advice on how to eat:

As I was watching the documentary, I was struck by how simple the advice was, and by how horribly I fail to live up to it.  Even though I actually like real, unprocessed, healthy foods.  The main reason I eat so much bad food is laziness and accessibility, both of which I can change.  So...I'm making two commitments for the months that fall under the heading of "Eat Food". 

1)  No pop.  It's something I don't need, and it's one of the worst things I can possibly consume.  So for this month (if not longer), I'm done with it. 

2)  Take one fruit and one vegetable in my lunch every day.  It's a small start, but it is at least a start.  I bought an assortment of vegetables at the grocery store today, I've cut up a bunch of vegetables to take in my lunches, and I'm ready to be successful at this one.

Now I'm off to Red Lobster for dinner.  I wonder if they sell any real food....

Goals - Looking Back at February and Ahead to (What's Left of) March

This post is a little late.  I've been scrambling a bit to catch up on everything that didn't get done while I was in Montreal, and I've been feeling a lot of end-of-winter blahs, so the blog has been a bit neglected.

I set three goals for myself for February:  Work out three days a week; go see the psychiatrist, and go out with friends/family twice a week.  How did it go, you ask?

Recycled February goal:  Go to the gym three days a week.

Nope.  Didn't happen.  I went a few times at the beginning of the month, and then sleeping in seemed more appealing than exercise (as it always does), and I stopped.  I think I've hit the dreaded point where I no longer believe that I can be successful at this goal, so I'm not even making an effort.  I'm not sure what it's going to take for me to get exercising again, but I do genuinely want to find a way to make this a regular part of my life.  I commented to my girlfriend yesterday that I'm happier and more relaxed when I exercise, and she looked at me as if I'd just said that the sky is blue and responded "Um.  Yes."

Second February goal:  Don't chicken out and skip the assessment with the psychiatrist.

With this, I was fully successful.  Not only did I go to the initial assessment, but I also went to three follow up appointments to convince him that there wasn't something seriously wrong with me and that I just wanted some help learning better coping skills.  (Aside:  I have never been asked about drinking, drug use, and suicidal thoughts as many times as I was in those four sessions with the psychiatrist.  Apparently physicians only seek help when things are terribly wrong, and I'm a bit of an anomaly for wanting some preventative mental health care.)  Having passed the psychiatrist's test, I'm now awaiting the availability of a psychologist who will do some cognitive-behavioural therapy with me.

At some point, I will write a whole post about my experiences with this and about physician mental health in general, but today is not that day.  For the thoughts of another soon-to-be physician on this subject, check out Kay's blog Premed Post-Mom.

Third February goal:  Spend time with people I love.  At least twice a week.  The girlfriend doesn't count.

Yes!  I did this*!  Apparently if I set fun goals for myself, like go out for dinner with my favourite people, I can achieve them.  Over the course of February, I did the following:

• Took my nieces to see a play about Harriet Tubman
• Organized a gathering of medical friends to try out a local restaurant promotion
• Drove to the country to visit my bff from medical school
• Went to my Mom's house for dinner and to help her move furniture
• Went to dinner and the theatre with my Mom
• Met up with a friend from grad school in Montreal 
• Breakfast at a shitty new restaurant with my Mom 

This goal was a good one for me, as it reminded me that, as much as I love my girlfriend and her people, I get something unique from spending time with my people.  My family and my long-term friends know me and love me in a way that my girlfriend's people don't, and that connection and understanding are central to my happiness.  As an introvert, I am more than able to meet my need for time spent with other people through my girlfriend and her extroverted social life, but it is still important for me to maintain my own social contacts.

The main downside to this goal was that it completely wiped me out.  In addition to the activities that I did with my people, I also spent a lot of time with the girlfriend and her people, and it was simply more than this fragile introvert could handle.  By the end of the month, all I wanted was time in my pjs on the couch with my cats.  Which is pretty much how I've spent all my free time in March so far.  Also...all of the eating out was expensive.  My eating out budget is usually ridiculously high, but in February it was about 50% beyond what it usually is.

March's really vague, non-SMART goal:

For a while I was thinking of not setting a goal for March, as I'm mostly just feeling tired and in need of a break, but then I came up with something that I think I can do even in my tired state, which is kind of, but not really, a goal.

In March, I want to make more of an effort to recognize what I need and to meet those needs.

(See?  Vague.)

For essentially all of my medical training, I didn't think much about what I wanted or needed.  There was always a long list of things that I absolutely had to do, so I just focused on getting them done, regardless of how happy or unhappy I was doing them.  Thankfully, things are different now, and I have much more flexibility to do the things that are important and life-giving to me.  Or, on a smaller scale, to simply do the things that make me calmer and happier from moment to moment.

While I could've tried to make this a defined goal, I've intentionally left it nebulous because the things that I need vary from day to day.  Some days I need to retreat from the world and be with my cats, while other days I need to socialize and connect with the people I love.  Some days I need to be stingy with my budget and save for the future, while other days I need to be self-indulgent and enjoy the results of my hard work.  Some days I need to work less so that I can get enough rest and relaxation, while other days I need to work more so that I can get shit done and stop stressing about it.  Different days, different needs.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

*Technically I only did seven things instead of the eight that would be required to have gone out exactly twice per week, but I'm still counting this as a success.  In part because I achieved the spirit of the goal, and in part because one of my friends bailed on dinner plans at the last minute, so I can blame her for falling slightly short of eight.

Goals: Review of January/Plan for February

Well...

My main goal for January, if you remember, was to go to the gym three times per week.  I think the best phrase to describe my performance is epic fail.  In total, I think I made it five times.  And the fifth only happened because my girlfriend resisted my desperate pleas to stay in the warm bed this morning and dragged me to the gym. 

Part of the failure wasn't my fault.  Soon after recovering from my horrible Christmas cold, at approximately the time when my chapped nostrils were starting to heal and I was getting used to being able to breathe without choking on phlegm, I got another cold.  So for at least 3-4 days I didn't have the respiratory function to run on the treadmill.  The rest of the failure was clearly my fault.  Some of the excuses I used for skipping the gym included not getting enough sleep, feeling groggy from getting too much sleep, the bed is warm, and of course "I don't want to".

I don't know how to do better.  While my resolve is generally good when I'm thinking about going to the gym during the day, it is abysmal at 6:45 in the morning when the room is dark and I am buried under my favourite duvet.  I'm hopeful that my girlfriend will be a positive influence, as she has committed to working out regularly, and she's vastly better at sticking to habits than I am.  (She still wears her retainer at night.  Over a decade after her braces came off.  I think I might have done that for a month, if that.)  I know that it isn't enough to rely on my girlfriend's commitment, but maybe her encouragement will help me in the early stages of developing this habit.

Recycled February goal:  Go to the gym three days a week.

My other January goal was to find a counselor.  Success!  Thanks to a service for physicians, I've actually been able to get an appointment with a psychiatrist for an initial assessment next week.  I'm a bit nervous about it because 1) it's in the hospital where I work and 2) I know some of the psychiatrists who are on the treatment team.  I can't say I like the possibility that someone I know, or worse yet one of my colleagues, could find out about this.  But...I believe very strongly that we shouldn't stigmatize mental illness, particularly in medical professionals, and one of the ways of breaking down the stigma is to show that good, competent physicians can struggle with mental health issues.  So I'm just going to suck it up and do it.

Second February goal:  Don't chicken out and skip the assessment with the psychiatrist.

Because it's rather boring to just recycle old goals, I'm setting one new big goal for the month.  I wrote recently about how much I hate winter, and my hatred just seems to grow as the season continues with no sign of an end.  Despite my plans to embrace winter, I've been doing a spectacular job of staying home on my couch, which isn't doing anything to make me a happier person.  So, I've set myself a goal of making two social plans with friends or family for every week in February.  It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it requires me to change out of my sweatpants and spend time with another person.  And it can't just be my girlfriend or friends of my girlfriend, as I'm way too reliant on her for social interactions (a problem when introverts date extroverts, and something I've been meaning to blog about for a while).  It has to be someone whose primary connection is to me.

It's been kind of fun to brainstorm things that I can do over the next month.  While restaurants and movies will undoubtedly feature heavily in my plans, I'm also thinking about taking my nieces to a play, having friends over for games, and hosting a potluck.  And maybe even going skating with friends in an attempt to get over my hatred of this miserable season.

Any other creative ideas?

Third February goal:  Spend time with people I love.  At least twice a week.  The girlfriend doesn't count.

2016 - Looking Ahead

Much of medical training is about deferring happiness*.  Every study session, every 24-hour-plus call shift, is an exchange of the fun things I could be doing now for the benefits I hope to get in the future.  In my case, I invested 16 years into post-secondary education with the expectation that it would make me happier in the long run.

It occurred to me recently that I have finally left the stage of deferred happiness.  The studying and exams and overnight call are all behind me, and the time for enjoying life is here.  The unfortunate thing, however, is that I have spent so much of my life looking ahead and waiting that it's hard to adjust to being in the present and enjoying it for what it is.  Whenever I think about my life, it is reflexively with a forward-looking gaze, wondering what is over the next horizon and how soon I will get there.

Which is something that I want to change.  So my overarching goal for 2016 is to learn to be present.  To stop thinking about what comes next and instead focus on what is happening now.  To enjoy the life of a physician that I worked so hard and so long to create.  To be mindful of the multitude of blessings in my life.  To do this, I plan to set little goals for myself, along the lines of the "gradual, long-lasting change" that I talked about in December.  I'll probably set one or two goals every month, although sometimes I'll set weekly goals just to try something out for a short while.  All of the goals will be focused on making life better in the now, rather than banking happiness for the future.

For January, my main goal is a resurrected one:  get to the gym three days a week.  I had been doing well prior to catching the cold from hell, but I stopped entirely when I was sick and missed about two weeks.  This week I regained the ability to breathe through my nose, so I started going to the gym again, and I've made it all three days (go me!).  This may seem like a goal with a more long-term purpose (lose weight, get healthy, don't die of a stroke at 40), but I'm really doing it for the way that exercise makes me feel in the present.  It helps my anxiety, it helps with sleep, and it simply makes me a happier person than when I'm sitting on the couch eating cheese.

My minor goal for the month is to find a counselor.  My job weighs on me emotionally - I feel anxious about the possibility of screwing things up, and I am at times devastated by the bad health outcomes that my patients experience despite my best efforts.  Although I'm coping with all of this, I don't want my work life to be just about coping.  So I'm going to try to find a counselor with whom I can talk and debrief periodically.

We'll see how I do at the end of the month.

*SLukettG writes in her typically eloquent way about this in a post entitled "Marshmallows".  Definitely worth reading.