"Give it to me! I got it first!!!" "NO YOU DID NOT! I grabbed it off the shelf first!" "This Elmo is mine!!!!!! Bob, tell her I got to this first!" Bob looked like a man who wanted to disappear into his turtleneck. "Come on, Nancy.. it's a toy." "DON'T TELL ME IT'S JUST A TOY! THIS IS A TICKLE ME ELMO!! AND IT'S MINE!!!!" Shaking my head as I walked away, I assessed the chaos that had descended on this Black Friday. What was this alternate reality I had entered into?
Category: Minimalism
A Doctor’s Journey Into Minimalism: Can It Be Done?
As I observe the spending habits of my patients, friends and fellow doctors, I find we are in a constant state of consumption. We're all chasing that thing that will make our life complete - the newest phone, fitness tracker, piece of clothing... you name it, the marketing gods will instill in you the "need" for you to have it. Inevitably though, it's never enough.
A Third Life Crisis: What Would You Regret the Most?
We have been conditioned to think of work as the end all, be all of life. But if you were to ask people what they regret the most at the end of life as Bronnie Ware had, they would say this: I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. I wish that I had let myself be happier. What are we doing with our lives?
Can Minimalism Be an Antidote to the Opioid Crisis?
When I first started working in my primary care clinic after residency, I was adamant I was NOT going to prescribe long term narcotics. Unless you've been living under a rock, I think most people are aware of the opioid crisis that is storming across America. I'm talking about Oxycontin, Morphine, Norco, Vicodin, Percocet, etc. During training, I already had my fill of drug-seeking patients in my residency clinic, ER and the hospital - there was no way I wanted to continue that trend in my new big girl job. If anyone wants to talk about things that immediately suck the empathy right out of young doctors, I've got two words for you: Opioid abuse.