Sutured Dreams

(Note - Names of individuals have been changed to protect their identity). A wise man once told me that life is simply a never-ending sequence of personal and professional problems that you just have to solve. What I've learnt from personal experience is that the magnitude of one problem can totally change the way you see another one. For example, I don't have exam stress anymore, at least not like I used to. Not since my mother died. Exams can be challenging but at least it is something that you can directly control whereas there are so many other heart-rending problems in life that you can simply do nothing to stop. These experiences give you perspective. With that said, the story I'm about to share today was, in retrospect, a more tame experience compared with the usual crap I've had to deal with in the last 3 years or so. But before we I can jump into things, I need to provide some context. This was a particularly challenging period in my life. Taki...

We spend far more time at our jobs than we'd like to imagine. Depending on the nature of your job and time taken for travel, you could spend close to half your time with work related activities. So getting a new job can be like starting a new life, a chance to start afresh. I didn't know it at the time, but I was using my job as an escape from my problems. When everything that could go wrong was going wrong in my personal life, I could always go to work and pretend that nothing was wrong. And it wasn't hard. When your job involves dealing with around 80-100 patients during an 8 hour shift +/- rounds, there really isn't any time for the mind to wander off into negative thoughts. Time passes by very quickly. You only share what you need to about yourself at work, nothing more. But when your personal life is as crappy as mine, even the most benign-appearing questions ends with me telling a sad story of some sort. It's not my first instinct to lie (or so I'd li...