Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone
When is the last time you did something for the first time?
I heard this adage (for the first time) a few days ago just before embarking on my first Tough Mudder—a 10-mile run (OK, walk for me) interrupted by 20 obstacles, most of which involved cold water and mud. One even had electricity. It took my husband and me nearly five hours to finish.
Why, at age 54, was I doing this? Because I never had. Because I still could. Because if I don’t keep challenging myself I will atrophy physically, mentally, and emotionally.
It’s why a very good friend, who is in his 70s, is right now walking 500 miles along the Camino De Santiago in Spain—by himself.
Look, we are all in the healthcare field. We know the myriad ways in which our bodies fail. In just the past two months a friend lost her sister to ovarian cancer; another friend was diagnosed with prostate cancer; a high school friend died of throat cancer; a friend in her 20s had a recurrence of the rare brain tumor that … Continue Reading
In honor of Thanksgiving and the start of the holiday season, I’m taking a break from my rants about the election and health care. Instead, I want to talk about taking risks.
So I’ve been thinking a lot about stress lately. Obviously, it’s because I’m in one of those work/personal periods where the word comes in all capital letters and my dreams seem to be caught on a continual loop of taking-an-exam-in-a-class-I-forgot-to-attend-all-semester (and yes, I’ve been out of school for 26 years now)/realizing-I-just-bought-a-new-house-and-have-to-move/or, finding-that-I-have-10-stories-due-tomorrow (for the newspaper at which I haven’t worked in years).