Doc’s Thoughts Broaden your perspective. Live a happy, healthy, meaningful life. Subscribe to Doc's Thoughts When I sat down to write this, I was struggling with ideas. I stared at the blinking cursor, feeling it mock me from the screen, and wracked my brain for something—anything—to hold onto. Several half-formed ideas raced around my head, but grabbing one, and actually putting it down into words, proved elusive. Feeling progressively more stuck, I got up, put on my coat, and took a walk....
6 days ago • 3 min read
Doc’s Thoughts Broaden your perspective. Live a happy, healthy, meaningful life. Subscribe to Doc's Thoughts This past weekend, I overheard a neighbor talking about getting her groceries delivered. “I’ve already put in my Costco and Target order.” As a way of getting food to the house, this is highly efficient. It might take half an hour to put the order together, but it's much less time than driving to the stores and picking everything up. Later that day, my wife and I walked to a local...
13 days ago • 3 min read
Doc’s Thoughts Broaden your perspective. Live a happy, healthy, meaningful life. Subscribe to Doc's Thoughts Most of the problems we face in our life do not have simple solutions. For someone struggling with weight, for example, there are likely a multitude of challenges: lack of time to prepare food, lack of time/desire/ability to exercise, stress from work/home life/kids, complicated feelings about food, challenges about who will eat certain foods within the household, grocery shopping,...
20 days ago • 4 min read
Doc’s Thoughts Broaden your perspective. Live a happy, healthy, meaningful life. Subscribe to Doc's Thoughts I frequently talk with patients who do not want to take medication. It's pretty understandable; nobody wants to take pills. No one wants to start taking insulin. No one wants to wear CPAP at night. Sometimes, people are relieved or hopeful about starting medication, but not really excited. I spend a lot of my time talking to people about things nobody wants. Illness, disease, serious...
27 days ago • 3 min read
Doc’s Thoughts Broaden your perspective. Live a happy, healthy, meaningful life. Subscribe to Doc's Thoughts I am often taken with the power of stories to convey better, with deeper meaning, and more efficiently, complex or difficult to explain ideas. A few weeks ago, I wrote a post that was basically two stories; I got good feedback. ### Jack grew up poor. He hated it. He would watch important men in suits walk by and think, One day, that’s going to be me.He dreamed of driving a beautiful...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Doc’s Thoughts Broaden your perspective. Live a happy, healthy, meaningful life. Subscribe to Doc's Thoughts While substance abuse is horrible, and being trapped in it is a pretty awful experience for everyone involved, there is often a silver lining. Many times, a person’s experience with substance abuse becomes a pivotal, transformative experience. Like a phoenix rising, the crucible of suffering related to the experience of using drugs becomes a turning point, a catalyst for growth and...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Doc’s Thoughts Broaden your perspective. Live a happy, healthy, meaningful life. Subscribe to Doc's Thoughts We all know what we should be doing—exercising more, eating better, spending less time on our phones—but most of us don’t. If I were an academic, I might describe my research interest as “the gap between what people know is good for them, what they want to do, and what they actually do.” Just about everyone experiences this gap. On one side are the behaviors we intend to engage in, and...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Doc’s Thoughts Broaden your perspective. Live a happy, healthy, meaningful life. Subscribe to Doc's Thoughts This week was Yom Kippur, the Jewish holiday of repentance and atonement. Every year on Yom Kippur, my wife says to me, “I’m sorry for all the things I have done this year that have hurt you.” I respond with the same message. The message matters—not “If I’ve hurt you,” but the presumption that we have hurt each other. None of us are perfect, and this simple ritual begins from that...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Doc’s Thoughts Broaden your perspective. Live a happy, healthy, meaningful life. Subscribe to Doc's Thoughts This first story is a classic Buddhist parable: One day the Buddha was resting with a group of monks in the woods. They had just finished a meal, and were talking with each other. Suddenly a farmer came by, visibly upset and distraught. He yelled, “Monks, have you seen my cows?” “We have not seen any cows,” the Buddha responded. “You know,” the man wailed, “I am the most miserable...
2 months ago • 4 min read