In my youth, I had an amazing amount of energy. In retrospect, had I known better, a good deal of it could have been invested more wisely. However knowledge, and the psycho-social-spiritual developmental stage at which one can enact and integrate the knowledge, can be decades apart.
Some of us work pathologically hard "so people will like me." Paradoxically, this very striving can alienate the very colleagues, patients, friends and family whose love & respect we crave. But since work may be our only well-rehearsed, trusted connection to the world, we keep pouring more and more of ourselves into our profession - even though at some level we realize that "doing more of what doesn't work, doesn't work!" We tend to have inadequate training, aptitude, interest & trust in inter- & intrapersonal "soft" skills.
“Mulla Nasrudin was outside on his hands and knees below a lantern when a friend walked up. ‘What are you doing, Mulla?’ his friend asked. ‘I’m looking for my key. I’ve lost it.’ So his friend got down on his hands and knees too and they both searched for a long time in the dirt beneath the lantern. Finding nothing, his friend finally turned to him and asked, ‘Where exactly did you lose it?’ Nasrudin replied, ‘I lost it in the house, but there is more light out here.’”
Kornfield, J. Feldman, C. Soul food. Stories to nourish the spirit and the heart. HarperSanFrancisco 1996.
Of course it's never too late to take the less well-lit, but rich, essential path to mature adulthood. It comes through a mindful examination of one's personal and interpersonal life.
Hollis J. “Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life.” Gotham Books, NY, 2005.
“It’s better to limp slowly along the right path than walk stridently in
the wrong direction.”
Marc Aurel
