Passion…unbridled

Buy __ for your children and witness

The joy on their faces priceless

This advice was given to me recently

As I tried to navigate rather unsuccessfully

Giving in to my son’s wants versus giving a lesson

About the value of money and delayed gratification

I have not decided which way to go

My child would be pleased, I know

If he got what he wanted, but that is not the way

I want him to experience happiness anyway

*

Let your child work hard at a skill, be competitive

Encourage him to excel and give

Your unconditional support, and when success he achieves

Let him bask in the glory of the accolades he receives

The joy of success in his eyes you would like to see

As his proud mother obviously-

I cannot but agree with this sentiment

But letting him be happy only when he succeeds is also not my intent

*

In the ideal world I would like my child to be happy

When he puts in his best effort, regardless of what the result happens to be

When he does something that benefits someone

Without expecting anything in return

When he earns enough to satisfy his needs desires

But does not tie his happiness to what he acquires

I want him to be the best person that he can be

And then the happiness in his eyes I want to see

When into turmoil my emotions are thrown

When I am feeling completely alone

When nothing seems to make sense anymore

I seek refuge in writing, into words I pour

My angst, even when my emotions are not well-articulated

Writing provides me comfort, lets my angst get abated

*

Writing provides a mechanism to cope

With life’s challenges, words distill hope

Into my heart when I am drowning in despair

Pouring my woes on paper makes me more self-aware

Gives me a path forward when there appears to be none

Weaving my problems into words is half the battle

My writing has its seasons, there are months when I write prolifically

Everything I experience provides ideas and imagery

For me to weave into words that effortlessly flow

I start believing that this season of creativity would never go..

*

Sooner or later, the well of inspiration starts running dry

It seems all possible themes I’ve explored, even though I try

To come up with novel ideas, my writing tends to be

Repetitive, insipid, lacking in originality

The season of my writing comes to a natural end

There is nothing I can do to let the season extend

*

One day the seed of an idea plants itself in my brain

And my dormant creative cells are activated again

I am inspired to write, sometimes in a fever pitch

My thoughts assemble themselves into words for me to stitch

Together into verses that are a window into my mind

In writing, an almost spiritual contentment I find

*

I hope this is my season to write

When ideas flow freely and there is no writer’s block to fight

I read about an interesting concept to reduce

The symptoms of burnout we increasingly feel, to infuse

A sense of calm into a busy, chaotic day

To drive excessive anxiety away

“Prescribe yourself a minute” was the advice

Despite my initial skepticism, I tried it, and to my surprise

Taking a minute when I was feeling stressed out

To sit down and center myself worked like a charm, without

Consuming any time, in fact I was more productive

When a minute at a time between tasks I could give

To focus on my breathing and practicing mindfulness

The power of a full minute I was this able to harness..

*

Sometimes a minute is all we need

To slow down and shift our focus indeed

Away from the stressors that we face

To give our mind rest and solace

We physicians prescribe a variety of treatments for patients we see

It is time to prescribe something for ourselves exclusively

I just came across a concept previously unfamiliar to me

That is an emerging concept in design-ecomimicry

*

Greenery in urban spaces we have been incorporating

In a cookie-cutter fashion- or “blandscaping”

Where a green space devoid of local flora is artificially created

The idea being that chosen varieties of plants can be located

In the midst of skyscrapers in any sprawling megacity

To give it much needed greenery while maintaining uniformity

Just like buildings are architecturally similar everywhere

The green islands similarity in design share

*

This anthropocentric approach threatens the natural flora and fauna of the land

Local biodiversity should be included, we are coming to understand

Enter the “ecomimicry” approach to design that draws heavily

On nature, is based on local patterns of biodiversity

*

We learnt from nature but somehow we started believing

That we could outsmart nature, now that conviction is receding

Let us find wisdom in the natural world and align

With nature, our elements of building and design

Sometimes with people of my own generation I feel

That I have a generation gap- when they reveal

All the things they are doing and aspire in the future to do

I am taken by surprise, I had no clue

That people my age lived lives so different from me

I thought I was living “age-appropriately”

*

Late nights out are relics of the past for me

While people in their forties still seem to party

With the vigor of younger people, late into the night

I wonder how their circadian rhythms stay right

They seek new adventures and thrills

I no longer do that and never in the future will

They keep pace with their children, I wonder how

That is something my aching joints would not allow..

*

Am I older in my mind than my biological age would indicate

Or just a timid person, who tends to hesitate

To get out of her comfort zone- which seems to get larger every year

Let me learn from my peers and try to overcome my fears

Unpleasant circumstances we don’t want to face

Amongst us uncomfortable conversations do not take place

Discussing a future that includes illness and disability

Not to mention death as an inevitability

Is anxiety-provoking and with uncertainty fraught

Although we make financial plans, we do not

Like to talk about the ailments that are likely to appear

As we grow older, the thought fills us with such fear

That the elephant in the room we never address

Even when plans for future we express

*

Your future you can try to map out, consider every eventuality

But the best laid plans can go awry, that’s the reality

So we block out unpleasant thoughts and focus on the moment

We try to enjoy the precarious stability of the present..

After my doctor’s visit I received a thick document

Called the “after-visit summary”, but its contents

Appeared neither concise nor summarized

As I read through it I realized

That the actual instructions were hiding in between

General information about respiratory viruses that could have been

Easily eliminated from the papers handed out to me

The useful, actionable information was hard to see

Thinking I would remember the doctor’s instructions, I threw away

The document that was too verbose to be useful anyway..

*

A few days later I realized the doctor’s instructions I could not recall

Panicked, I had to place to the clinic an urgent call

Realizing my error- I had thrown the “brochure” of instructions away

Being overconfident in my memory that day

*

Of course I now preserve every piece of paper I receive

From the doctor, but I still find it hard to believe

That there is a purpose behind the bulky after-visit summaries

Give me short, easy to comprehend instructions please..

In her busy clinical practice a gamut of medications she prescribed

But she realized that many ailments of her patients could be ascribed

To lack of social interaction and a feeling of loneliness

How could she treat this ailment, over this question she obsessed

There were no solutions she could find

But an idea began to germinate in her mind

*

She advertised locally for volunteers for her clinic

She pitched her idea to those interested, trying to pick

Those who seemed excited to put her plan in place

Where patients would congregate in the open space

Just outside her office for therapeutic socialization

With an enthusiastic volunteer leading the session

*

At the beginning, the idea did not get much traction

In patients’ minds, they would not admit to lack of interaction

Being a problem- but a few joined “therapy” just out of curiosity

And went home feeling better definitely

*

Soon the news spread, other clinicians started sending patients too

Realizing there was much good socialization therapy could do

By making people get over their loneliness

She felt she had found fulfillment and success

*

It is easy to prescribe a medication

But what ails many people these days is social isolation

Creative ways to forge opportunities for people to socialize

Are sorely needed, as one small-town doctor realized

For those practicing medicine, this profession used to be enough

To satisfy Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,  but it seems increasingly tough

To rely on medicine alone for income, professional satisfaction and self-actualization

They all seem to looking for a side gig for income diversification

Not just a hobby but something substantial to replace

Both income and vocation when burnout in healthcare they face..

*

Physicians tend to be life-long learners , so they are not afraid

To pivot if needed, and learn from scratch a new trade

Finding another vocation in which they can do reasonably well

Is not difficult once they decide to retreat from the field in which they excel

*

With more physicians trying to cut down their hours or leave medicine entirely

An impending shortage of highly trained professionals we can foresee

To train as a doctor takes years with sacrifices along the way

To complete training, milestones in life and gratification they delay

Therefore leaving medicine is not a frivolous decision 

It happens only when a hopeful future they cannot envision

In the long-term, they cannot be easily replaced

But the system does little to address the challenges they face…

*

I hope the healthcare system recognizes and tries

To address burnout in physicians, those in administration need to realize

That the problem is going to reach crisis proportions eventually 

There wouldn’t be enough doctors to take care of a population aging rapidly

Sometimes my workday feels light as a feather

I am looking for a challenge, a storm to weather

I am full of energy and optimistic

I want to do better than the average statistic

I get work done with surprising efficiency

I am as meticulous and thorough as I can be

Being productive in this way gives me positive feedback

Even more work in limited hours I can pack

*

Sometimes the workday seems to drag on endlessly

I am inefficient and slow, no end appears in sight for me

I get distracted, make mistakes, have to backtrack

Making my workday longer, but motivation I lack

To complete work on time in order to get home

Instead I toil away at my desk, all alone

*

The workplace demands that all my workdays

Should look like the former, I should be efficient in every way

Therefore when I have a day of low motivation

I find myself trying to come up with a valid explanation

But the truth is that some days I feel slow without a particular reason

Probably due to poor sleep quality, traffic snarls or the winter season

*

Today is a day of no motivation at all

Into a cycle of inattention I continue to fall

Let me wrap up the day here, tomorrow when I come back

I hope discipline, motivation and energy I would not lack

When I am looking for a creative idea, what I do

Is the exact opposite of what I need to..

I scroll through my phone trying to find

Some content that sends a signal to my mind

To get the creative juices flowing through me

But this trick, though often used, works rarely

Once in a while I stumble upon an idea worth exploring

But mostly I just scroll through content insipid and boring

Realizing that precious time I have wasted away

And a creative idea I have not found along the way..

*

To foster my creativity I should sit alone

Let my mind wander, leave my phone

Empty my mind of thoughts pervasive

My attention to the resultant stillness I should give

Devoid of distractions, I should be

Able to come up with ideas more freely..

*

Next time I have a creative itch to scratch

I shall follow my own advice to detach

Myself from the myriad distractions around

I hope the secret to creative expression I’ve found