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Dump the Junk

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When I left my home for my residency, I left with one trolley bag and a backpack. Two years later, we got married and came back with seven boxes. A few years later, when shifting from one part of the country to another, we had a truck full of household items. In 2020, while moving to Delhi, we had 100 boxes! Yesterday, when the truck left our house for the next destination, we had managed to bring it down to 39. A 60% reduction! We had managed to dump some junk! As we went through this process, I was left wondering about the junk we accumulate as we journey through life. Not everything is junk. Much of what we carry along has stories, memories, and dreams linked to it. But definitely, some junk tags along, too!   But then, it's not just the material junk. We manage to accumulate emotional, mental (intellectual), and at times, spiritual junk too. Emotional baggage we refuse to dump, past traumas, experiences, fears, and failures that we hold on to. Ways of thinking—fixed ways of thi...
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ADD

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I have ADD—Attachment Detachment Disorder! Or perhaps a variant of RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder), as specialists would call it. I am diagnosing and labeling myself because I am trying to be culturally relevant! Every emotion I experience must have a label, so I can blame it on a disorder! What I am attached to, when I gave it up (detached from it), I became disordered!    How did I come to this conclusion? While still struggling with grief—the loss of a dear friend—I thought I had learned how to manage my emotions. But then came a simple act of giving away books (Stage 9 in the picture here). I hadn’t realized how even generosity or giving up could stir unexpected emotions in my heart—or lead to a disordered heart!  There was a sense of loss in losing the books I loved!    As a physician, my first instinct is to explain this disturbance through science.     Here’s an attempt:     Feelings and emotions arise from the activation ...
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Fog or Unfog...

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Recently, while reading 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban' (I sense some raised eyebrows  😊 ), I came across this incident. Professor Trelawney was teaching Harry and his friends about divination—how to "unfog the future" by looking into a teacup with tea leaf sediments at the bottom. When they couldn't see beyond the "soggy brown stuff," the professor told them, "Broaden your minds, dears, and allow your eyes to see past the mundane." When Harry still couldn't see anything, his friend Ron came up with this brilliant remark: "You need your Inner Eye tested, if you ask me."     I am not advocating divination (I sense some have stopped reading this blog after the first paragraph  😞 ), but in a way, isn't this what we want too? To 'unfog' the future by sorting out our 'Inner Eye'? Especially with W.E.I.R.D. people creating havoc across the world! (W.E.I.R.D. is an acronym for Western, Educated, Industria...
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Burden of Too Many Choices

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Last week, a friend came to me for a medical opinion. He is diabetic, hypertensive, and has some airway diseases. After listening to his concerns, I asked him about his current medications—a routine question for any physician.     He began taking out packets of medications, one after another. Each packet contained at least three different types of medicines.      First packet: Medications for diabetes prescribed by a diabetologist. "But then," he added, "I was travelling, and a family friend’s doctor told me to add one more tablet, so I’m taking this too."      Second packet: Medications for blood pressure, prescribed by a cardiologist. "Since I felt funny at night, I started taking this twice a day instead of once, as originally instructed. And sometimes, when I feel my BP is high, I take another tablet given by my friend's doctor, just in case."   Third packet: Medications for his cough—two tablets he had been taking regularly.  F...
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Changing seasons

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Seasons change; it is a fact of life. How much should I change or should I change itself is the question!  One thing I have enjoyed in the North has been the changing seasons - winter and a short spring, the long summer with a short monsoon added in, and then the short autumn. Despite the severity of some seasons, there is always something to hope for: this too shall pass! Some other parts of our nation have only hot, hotter, hottest, hot and humid, and back to hot. (I am not really looking forward to this.  😞 )   What we learn from observing these changes is that many things change, but some things do not. Many things perish, but new life emerges. Observe the tree outside our window. Leaves turn yellow; most fall and die, but soon, new ones emerge. Birds move out for some time but return. Some birds keep watch, like watchmen waiting for dawn to appear and for the season to change, since their habitat is also affected by seasonal change! Amid all these changes, the tree ...
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Fears

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I refused to conquer my fears a couple of months back. We were on a family vacation, and my son-in-law decided to go for a swim in the ocean and snorkelling.     I should not have tried it - snorkelling. Maybe I wanted to prove that I was not inferior when it came to facing challenges in life. Perhaps I refused to accept that I was not as young as I thought I was—or maybe something much deeper was at play. He knew how to swim well, while I had a mortal fear of water! I still can’t understand why I decided to snorkel.     Cutting the story short, with goggles and an air tube in place, I gently entered the water, but I refused to release my hand from the rope that guided us into the snorkelling area. I had a life jacket securely fastened around my body, too! Yet, after a few futile attempts to let go, float, and experience what could have been a once-in-a-lifetime moment, I returned disappointed.     Reflecting on this experience, three things ...
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