Rest is an opportunity to engage in activities that restore life | Considerations

The Christmas holiday was a much-needed break from work, and I was reminded how rest is not just the absence of activity, but also an opportunity to engage in activities that restore life.

Yes, it's key to sleep well and eat healthy food and exercise regularly, but what is it that makes my mind feel rested? Where I can wake up to a new day and feel at my best - energized by opportunities that lay ahead? I think it's having hobbies that I look forward to and that I make time for. Knowing that sometime in my week I will pause the everyday demands on my attention to do things that I enjoy for their own sake - that's when I feel like my capacity is restored.

To borrow phrasing from Cal Newport's book "Digital Minimalism", it's about choosing high-quality leisure over low-quality distraction.

For me, I feel best after learning something new. (I say that it's my preferred dopamine hit!) So whatever this new year brings, I hope to continue to listen to podcasts and read books and look up tutorials for my latest projects!

Having margins retain not only capacity, but also compassion | Thoughts

One way of scheduling a work day is to maximize how many patients I see. I've developed a slightly different approach: scheduling to keep a reasonable amount of compassion for each patient I see.

People in medicine tend to be those who throw lots of energy into their goals and expect a requisite output in return. Yet, running at a high level has its costs. My fear is the skill that got me through my medical training won't be the one that keeps me in it for the long term.

So rather than sprinting through a fully-packed day, I schedule my days with regular breaks and at least a thirty-minute digital-free lunch break. I know that I'm not in a good place when I'm irritable with my patients, who are reasonably asking for help with their medical concerns. Having those margins help me keep my energy and my heart refreshed to be the physician I want to be for them: a person who will be present with them and come alongside to figure things out.

Dr. Chris' Museletter 03 │ Reflections

#PODCASTS

What Now? (The Liturgists Podcast)

Beliefs are meant to point us or point from or be bidirectionally influenced with life. We are supposed to tell our beliefs by how we live our lives, not just the things we dictate to each other verbally.

Peter Attia, M.D. — Fasting, Metformin, Athletic Performance, and More (#398) (The Tim Ferriss Show)

And in the words of Terrence Real, who I just recently interviewed for my podcast, it’s taking that adaptive child in you and thanking them, but just moving them to the back seat, making sure their hands aren’t actually on the steering wheel and saying, “Hey, thank you. Thank you for the help you gave me during this period, but I need you to just sit back there now and just chill out, man. Just look out the window. We’re just going to go on a drive. But the adult has to drive now.”

Brené with Scott Sonenshein on Stretching and Chasing (Unlocking Us)

When we are constrained, we give ourselves permission to use our resources in different ways.

Deadlines create urgency and they activate in us making connections between things that we have a hard time seeing.

# 91 Russ Hudson: The Pursuit of Presence (#91) (The Knowledge Project)

We will be dissatisfied by what looks like freedom to us - which on the ego is having more options, more choices, being able to do whatever I want - which is, I call that loving my inner two year old. But real freedom is no longer being ruled by an inner two year old.

Books I’ve Loved — Alain de Botton (#459) (The Tim Ferriss Show)

Another great idea from Winnicott is the concept of the good enough parent.

First of all, he told parents, no child needs a perfect parent. Indeed, a perfect parent is very dangerous. It’s a one way route to psychosis, a psychotic incident because essentially the job of a parent is to disappoint a child bit by bit and induct them into adult realities. If the parent is perfect, how can the child grow used to living in the world that we all have to live in, which is a deeply imperfect one?

#ARTICLES

The Mindfulness Conspiracy by Ronald Purser (The Guardian)

Mindfulness advocates, perhaps unwittingly, are providing support for the status quo. Rather than discussing how attention is monetised and manipulated by corporations such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and Apple, they locate the crisis in our minds. It is not the nature of the capitalist system that is inherently problematic; rather, it is the failure of individuals to be mindful and resilient in a precarious and uncertain economy. Then they sell us solutions that make us contented, mindful capitalists.

The Surprising Value of a Wandering Mind by Lily Meyer (The Atlantic)

Odell emphasizes inefficiency by way of emphasizing what Cappello calls “wandering ways.” Both writers argue that intellectual meandering is key to real learning and, further, that the ability to take such detours is a skill that many of us must consciously nurture.

America Will Sacrifice Anything for the College Experience by Ian Bogost (The Atlantic)

College is a place like Las Vegas is a place: a host for the lifestyle it provides.