I'm Back

I'm back. At least for now. I figured people probably aren't following this blog anymore, so I can just pop in sometimes and have some alone time with my thoughts. 

It is funny how life evolves and changes.  Looking back to when I started this blog, indeed when blogging was popular, it is interesting to see the person I was, and the person I have become.  For better or worse?

Priorities change.  Then, it was learning.  Learning about medicine.  Learning how to survive internship, residency and fellowship.  Learning how to cope in a foreign country when all your loved ones are half a world away.  Being lonely and girl–crazy.  Emphasis on academia, publications, patient care.

Now, 2 decades later (how crazy is that) I guess I am officially middle aged.  My world revolves around my family (even though sometimes they may not feel that way). We've gone through some losses and grief. My outlook on life have changed.  Some things do not bother me as much anymore though other things touches me at the very deep level. Sometimes grasping, squeezing, suffocating.  Sometimes the world does not seem like a very promising place anymore and my view of the human species have become somewhat pessimistic, what with politics, environmental disasters, effects of social media on society, and simply the stupidity of man.

You realize that sometimes, as much as I love patient care and see some of them as family, some people just do not want to help themselves and in these situations there is absolutely nothing you can do.  You realize medicine is not as simple–you drown in the bureaucracy of insurance, medical economics, politics. You burn out. You face your own mortality and wonder what Legacy you would believe this will, your daughters, when you are gone.  You realize that life is finite.  Indeed, human civilization itself is finite.

As someone once said:

“I shall pass this way but once; any good that I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being; let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."