Fact: I'm often at my most productive when I'm also at my most dejected. During medical school, all the new projects and initiatives I've taken on have been in the wake of a break-up. Indeed, these projects might never have gotten off the ground without the catalyst of my heartbreaks. When all I want to do is curl up in bed and cry, I instead end up seeking out challenges and pushing myself to the brink in strictly unemotional realms. How organized can I be? How many things can I juggle at once? What things can I focus my energies upon, and exhaust myself with, so that I'm left with as little time and emotion as possible in which to brood upon the state of my personal affairs?
People often tell me I'm a perfectionist, a Type A personality, and I always disagree with them pretty heartily. But I suppose this impulse of mine is as good evidence as any of what is perhaps my true nature. When things suck for me, I just try to keep myself busy so that I don't have time to wallow.
Not that it really works, exactly. Like most people, (I assume so, anyway; I suppose I have no idea what other people have in their heads) I have a lively inner dialogue, a tempestuous sea, if you will, that is constantly running, whatever I'm doing on the outside. So I still find time to wallow. Time to come up with new iterations of my pain, new metaphors and catchphrases and mental images and sounds. I guess you can't really run away from your problems, no matter how hard you try.
But at least I'm doing useful things in the meantime. I've found that when one is in a crummy place emotionally, (and, incidentally, when one is in general not where one wants to be) the idea of "fake it till you make it" is a pretty useful one to apply. Eventually, the person you're trying to be becomes the person you are.
People often tell me I'm a perfectionist, a Type A personality, and I always disagree with them pretty heartily. But I suppose this impulse of mine is as good evidence as any of what is perhaps my true nature. When things suck for me, I just try to keep myself busy so that I don't have time to wallow.
Not that it really works, exactly. Like most people, (I assume so, anyway; I suppose I have no idea what other people have in their heads) I have a lively inner dialogue, a tempestuous sea, if you will, that is constantly running, whatever I'm doing on the outside. So I still find time to wallow. Time to come up with new iterations of my pain, new metaphors and catchphrases and mental images and sounds. I guess you can't really run away from your problems, no matter how hard you try.
But at least I'm doing useful things in the meantime. I've found that when one is in a crummy place emotionally, (and, incidentally, when one is in general not where one wants to be) the idea of "fake it till you make it" is a pretty useful one to apply. Eventually, the person you're trying to be becomes the person you are.
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