Recipe for Happiness: Just Add Time
Posted by RenaissanceTrophyWife on January 14, 2009
In the midst of double-booked meetings, anxious client emails, and international conference calls, I am actually doing fine this week. While work is hectic, it’s only one part of my life– and a part that isn’t taking over the rest of my sanity. In fact, I can honestly say I’m very happy right now. Maybe that’s weird, and it may be partially due to my rehab from the trauma of academic medicine, but regardless, that’s how it is.
A snippet of a convo between me and my mom last night:
RTW: I think I’m getting the hang of this cooking thing!
RTMom: (smiles) Is that so.
RTW: Yeah… it’s like my playtime in the kitchen. And RTBF likes what I make, amazingly enough… (Pause) But I probably enjoy it a lot more since I don’t have to do it.
RTMom: (laughs, gives me a hug) Well, I’m glad you’re happy and have time to enjoy new things.
I’m a pretty goal-oriented person; and I guess you could even say I thrive in pressure cooker situations. A little bit of stress definitely helps me now and then to kick it into high gear and really perform at my best– but only when the stress is temporary, like now.
Four years ago, I was so stressed out and barely had time to see my family, even on holidays. I had zero time to take care of myself emotionally or physically; let’s just say that having very sick patients simultaneously makes you wonder what is wrong with the world and be incredibly grateful that you can at least breathe/walk/see without being in excruciating pain.
Medicine is the ultimate service industry, and your own health and relationships will suffer, because doing anything less than your best for your patients is not acceptable. A 110-hour week is not a very humane thing, but neither is death. So, my eating habits were terrible, I was sleep-deprived, and I never made it to the gym to blow off steam. Holidays became just another workday… and my mom, having gone through all this 30 years ago when it was much harder, understood completely why I had to miss Thanksgiving dinners and birthdays and graduations. That didn’t stop me from feeling guilty at missing out on the important milestones and family gatherings, though.
Now that I’ve got a little more time, I am so much happier. RTBF is very understanding of my demanding (but exponentially less so) schedule. And I have weekends off to cook and craft and just enjoy the beauty of daylight with the people I love… what else could I ask for?
In an ideal world, I would be a surgeon (see: thrive in pressure cooker situations), but one who operates for a half day (7 am – 3 or 4 pm) then gets to go home, kiss the hubby, play with the kids, and enjoy being a normal person. Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as a part-time surgeon… or is there? The WSJ just ran an article on traveling general surgeons, and frankly it doesn’t seem like that’s a very sustainable option for the long term.
But I digress. Since I’m not a part-time surgeon, instead I hang out on the fringes of the healthcare world, go to work, come home, kiss the RTBF, call my friends/family, and enjoy being a normal person. It’s a pretty simple recipe for happiness, but I had nothing resembling a successful result until I just added time.
Does anyone feel like they have a good balance between work/play? Share your recipe for happiness– what would you do if you had all the time in the world?
