Chasing Happiness & Stumbling into Misery

Greeted this very early morning by our teenager, even before the alarm clock had its chance to welcome us to today, he revealed, “Mom. Dad. I’ve been lying to you.”

And… I’m fully awake! My wife and I, both physicians and both used to the ‘on-call’ mentality in the hospitals were now completely conscious. The list of issues for a fifteen-year-old male is nearly endless. Our third child is amazing, a straight-A student, an athlete, he’s also kind, thoughtful and well… he’s amazing. What could be so wrong that he is this upset…? The end of his statement held the vocal tone of tears yet to come, but coming in a few broken breaths, they rose into his next words. “Since we got back from winter break, I’ve not been doing my homework. I’m unmotivated. I can’t do it…” in the still darkness of our bedroom the alarm clock sounds again.

Whew!!! My first thought was full of relief. The list of parental nightmares faded in my mind. The alarm clock sounded and was silenced in a second. I reached out to turn the light on and then, in the considered darkness, decided it might be better for my young man to be emotional in the dark, tears hidden from Mom & Dad. It’s hard to become a man and be vulnerable simultaneously. I spoke, “Okay. Do you know why you are not doing your homework?” I mentally thanked the universe for my medical education and practice to be able within one minute of awakening, to ask the right question.

In a staccato voice an octave higher than normal, “I’m unmotivated. I sit there and stare at it. I don’t do it. I can’t do it. I just don’t care about it. I had four hours yesterday, which I never get! You know, with the rehearsals and karate and everything and I did nothing. I can’t do it!” Tears fully flowing now. The little light in the room showing his wet cheeks upon a silhouetted face crumpled on the end of the bed between myself and my wife’s legs… like he was seven years old again and broke something in the house, by accident. Given the tone in his voice, he clearly did care. It’s true ‘we’ – and I mean parent in-general, but especially ‘us’ physician-parents pack our kid’s schedules with activity and work with them to schedule and plan, prepare and execute all the things they want to do, and we want them to do. Two type-A doctor parents… I mean… what could go wrong, right? It’s okay to laugh, I do, at the insanity of it all.

This is my 3rd fifteen-year old child, second son and so parent-wise… I’m getting much wiser as a parent. Even tone to my voice, “We’re not mad. It’s alright. Everyone slacks off from time to time but I’m curious… what did you do with four hours yesterday?” You see, this child does not ‘do nothing’ and I mean ever. He is full on almost 100% of the time and this is how he’s turned his ADHD into a gift. The reply came quickly, like a justification more than an admission of guilt.

“I played video games with my friends. I texted with my girlfriend. I watched YouTuuuuuooo…Ba.” Sobs catching his breath. I faintly heard my wife stifle an emerging laugh. My own face became taut in the suppression of the ridiculous. Ah, to be young again…

“Breathe. You’re okay.” My wife chimed in on the moment. After he calmed himself. After a few minutes. Just a few moments of being a child again, of being vulnerable with his parents in darkness and stillness of the 5:00 a.m. hour he said, “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

Well, I do. I took a breath and spoke, “Son, we just had what quite possibly was the best vacation of our family’s life. I mean as far as family’s vacationing together, this was the Olympic Gold Medal. Were you happy over break?”

“Yeah.”

“So was I, so was your mother, your brother… all of us had an incredible time! We spent two weeks of fun, with the holiday’s, New Year’s and we challenged ourselves as family to go further, harder and better snowboarding than we ever had before. Heck, I spent three months in the gym and the pool just to prepare my body to keep up with yours on the slopes at altitude… but the point is...” I paused. “The point is we are all coming down off that ‘high’ of happiness. What you are doing is chasing that intense euphoria we all felt together and the happiness it brought you.” I was feeling like the best parent-guidance counselor ever!

Tears wiped away, cheeks drying, he asked, “What do I do? How do I fix it?”

“That’s the problem, son, there is no mechanistic way to ‘fix’ this. Your problem is not with capability or intelligence or rationalizations. It is a purely emotional battle within your being.” Okay, that’s probably not helping at 5:00 a.m. “What I mean is this; You have to let You find the balance again between the ‘working’ that needs to be done in your student-life and the ‘playing’ that brings you pleasure. If you force yourself to just ‘fix it’ and move on, then you will have this fight again and again within that part of your mind that ‘feels’ the world. The next time you find this frustration, it will be worse. Don’t try to fix it today, just go through today and every time you feel this frustration or this anger with yourself; tell yourself you are okay, breathe and allow yourself to feel that very moment. Every time you do this today you are helping that part of your emotional-psychologic-spiritual-mind re-balance. Think of it as an emotional push-up.”

Long pause. Very long. “Okay, dad.” Pause. “Can you drive me to school early?” I love this aspect of parenting. You do a phenomenal parenting job and they are back to business!

Oh my gosh, did I have to go to the bathroom! My own body now adding it’s pleadings to the conversation, “Yep. Let us get up,” and as if the universe was timing us, the snooze alarm sounded once more. Parenting might be better and faster on a full bladder, I playfully thought. Someone should do a study.

We all have incredible highs and lows in our life’s journeys. Doctors see and experience these ups and downs more frequently than some others and often we are not allowed to just ‘cruise’ through a day and allow ourselves to re-find our emotional balance. While this morning’s teenage wakeup call has to do with an old Latin proverb, ‘The memory of happiness makes misery woeful,’ what I found myself contemplating over my coffee was that so many doctors who experience burnout do not see the connection between the intense happiness created in the off-work weeks of our lives. Whether vacationing, or maternal/paternal time off, or just enough time and space to remember how to feel happy… it is the return to work where the emotional stumbling begins, frequently ending in feeling miserable, frustrated and perhaps even experiencing fleeting depression.

I just wanted to say to every physician out there, I loved being a doctor and practicing anesthesiology. I lost that to disability ten years ago. When I dream of intense happiness, I’m at the hospital, taking away the pain and suffering of my patients and encouraging, interacting and loving being with my colleagues. I hope everyone, especially medical professionals, who reads this finds one moment today where they choose to feel the honor, the integrity, the pleasure and the privilege of serving others as healers, teachers and all the best that human nature has to offer… to others AND to ourselves.

What I would give to stand in the sunlight of that physician life once again.

~Chris