Today is the 22nd of December, a Sunday, and I'm sitting around the house sick as a dog. Over the past few weeks, I've been thinking about the position I've found myself in at age 37. In truth, there's very little I can complain about. I love my wife, I love my house, we've got a little girl on the way... The problem is that I'm not really loving the thing I spend the vast majority of my time doing - anesthesia - on a daily basis. I do love it when I get what I'm going to call a big win - the kind of case that's really hard and where, at the end of the day, I *know* I've helped save a life. Apart from that, the day-in day-out is feeling like a bit of a grind. Just so we're all clear, I'm under no illusion that this is anything but a First World Problem, and I really *really* have no business complaining. Anyway, having ditched the academic route for a private practice gig which was just sold out from underneath me, I'm trying to figure out the next steps I need to take in order to be fulfilled and happy in my professional life as well as my personal life. The blog is a vehicle for hashing out some ideas, and also a mechanism to practice writing. I think I'd enjoy writing, but I've never felt exceptionally good about anything I've written. In fact, most of it is hashed together and kludgy. On the other hand, I haven't really spent a lot of time practicing my writing. Call this blog the first steps towards that 10,000 hours you need to get really good at something. (Or so says Malcolm Gladwell.) |